October.

And the last golden leaves twirling down from cottonwood and aspen and mountain maple; the lofty brown peaks fresh powdered with snow; the air dazzling, keen, heady like wine; frost a-sparkle of mornings on stone, fence-post, roof, with a rainbow coruscation of diamonds; clear, high moons; marvellous, moonlit nights.
It was the middle of the month.

Three weeks previous, with the bonds sold and the injunction suits dismissed, the contractor employed had unloaded his outfit at Kennard, moved up the Pinas River, raised in a day his camp at the mouth of the canon above Bartolo, and begun his task.

This man, Pat Carrigan, had been in Bryant's mind from the first: a Pueblo contractor of Irish extraction, born in a railroad camp, trained on a dump, and now grizzled and aging but unequalled in handling men, in keeping them satisfied, in moving dirt.

In his time he had turned off jobs from Maine to California, from Wisconsin to Texas.