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 more of the dam gave way, first on one side of the stream and then on the other. It went down like a cob-house, a piece here and a piece there, and the mighty—seething waters came rushing through the break like a demon of destruction. Then in a flash the full significance of what he had seen came home to Larry. The back of the dam had been broken and the rest would go in a few seconds. It meant a terrible flood in the valley below. He knew every rod of this country and his imagination pictured the waters piling up in the narrow canyon which stretched away for three miles below, but most of the farmers lived on the prairie land still further down and then he remembered the Ganzers, the family of floaters who had so annoyed the Crooked Creek ranch people the year before, and who had finally set fire to the lower plateau. This family of squatters had built a cabin two miles belocw the dam that very spring and so far as he knew they were still there. They were in the immediate pathway of the flood in one of the narrowest portions of the canyon where the water would pile up like a veritable deluge.

It was true that the Ganzers were enemies of the ranch people, but even so he would have to warn them. And was not little Elsie Ganzer one of the family? Elsie and he had been the best of friends all through the feud between her folks and the ranch people the year before. She was only eight years old and the sins