For some time the wind blew only in those fitful puffs Lee had noted or died down entirely for short periods; and of this fact the night shift took advantage to assemble the fresnos and plows beside the canal and to drive their horses to shelter.

The crews of the north camp, being fewer, got away first; and thither Bryant plowed through the snow with them to see all made safe.

When he returned, Carrigan was just herding the last man and team toward the main camp.

Together the contractor and the engineer extinguished the torches, then made their way, carrying a flare with them, toward the glow showing at the edge of the camp, where an oil-soaked bale of hay burned as a guide.

At their backs the wind and snow blew with gradually increasing strength.
They made the rounds of the horse tents packed with animals, the mess tents packed with workmen--with those men only come and those newly aroused from sleep and gathered here--of the shacks, the hospital, the engineers' headquarters and the big commissary tent, all crowded with white men and Mexicans, steaming with moisture, smoking cigarettes and pipes, giving off a rank smell of clay and human bodies and wet clothes and horses, who talked and laughed and waited restlessly.