a cut wire, or
a faulty strap may mean instant death. Usually the girls laughed and
called back to them or went on more quickly, the colour in their cheeks
a little higher.

But not Anastasia Rourke. Early the first morning of a two-weeks' job on
the new plant of the Western Castings Company Chet Ball, glancing down
from his dizzy perch atop an electric light pole, espied Miss Anastasia
Rourke going to work. He didn't know her name nor anything about her,
except that she was pretty. You could see that from a distance even more
remote than Chet's. But you couldn't know that Stasia was a lady not to
be trifled with. We know her name was Rourke, but he didn't.

So then: "Hoo-Hoo!" he had called. "Hello, sweetheart! Wait for me and
I'll be down."

Stasia Rourke had lifted her face to where he perched so high above the
streets. Her cheeks were five shades pinker than was their wont, which
would make them border on the red.

"You big coward, you!" she called, in her clear, crisp voice. "If you
had your foot on the ground you wouldn't dast call to a decent girl like
that. If you were down here I'd slap the face of you. You know you're
safe up there."

The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Chet Ball's sturdy legs
were twinkling down the pole. His spurred heels dug into the soft pine
of the pole with little ripe, tearing sounds. He walked up to Stasia and
stood squarely in front of her, six feet of brawn and brazen nerve. One
ruddy cheek he presented to her astonished gaze. "Hello, sweetheart," he
said. And waited. The Rourke girl hesitated just a second. All the Irish
heart in her was melting at the boyish impudence of the man before her.
Then she lifted one hand and slapped his smooth cheek. It was a ringing
slap. You saw the four marks of her fingers upon his face. Chet
straightened, his blue eyes bluer. Stasia looked up at him, her eyes
wide. Then down at her own hand, as if it belonged to somebody else. Her
hand came up to her own face. She burst into tears, turned, and ran. And
as she ran, and as she wept, she saw that Chet was still standing there,
looking after her.

Next morning, when Stasia Rourke went by to work, Chet Ball was standing
at the foot of the pole, waiting.

They were to have been married that next June. But that next June Chet
Ball, perched perilously on the branch of a tree in a small woodsy spot
somewhere in France, was one reason why the American artillery in that
same woodsy spot w