Work was the only thought.

With hastily constructed snow-plows roads had been broken among the tents and shacks as soon as the weather allowed, and afterward broad paths made to the working ground.

The section of undug canal was now scraped bare.

There, sheltered by tents and warmed by sagebrush fires, men bored in the iron-like earth powder-holes in rows that exactly aligned the canal.

On the morning of the fifth day a first stretch of fifty yards was blown out, whereupon teams and scrapers were rushed into the ragged cavity to deepen and clear the ditch before the soil froze anew.