d out a good day's work for us," he said.

"Your pardner with the store hat and the stinkin' cigaroots?--he's all
right," said Biggin; and it so chanced that at the precise moment of
the saying the subject of it was standing with the foreman of
track-layers at a gap in the new line just beyond and above the
Rosemary's siding at Argentine, his day's work ended, and his men
loaded on the flats for the run down to camp over the lately-laid
rails of the lateral loop.

"Not such a bad day, considering the newness of us and the bridge at
the head of the gulch," he said, half to himself. And then more
pointedly to the foreman: "Bridge-builders to the front at the first
crack of dawn, Mike. Why wasn't this break filled in the grading?"

"Sure, sorr, 'tis a dhrain it is," said the Irishman; "from the placer
up beyant," he added, pointing to a washed-out excoriation on the
steep upper slope of the mountain. "Major Evarts did be tellin' us
we'd have the lawyers afther us hot-fut again if we didn't be lavin'
ut open the full width."

"Mmph!" said Adams, looking the ground over with a critical eye. "It's
a bad bit. It wouldn't take much to bring that whole slide down on us
if it wasn't frozen solid. Who owns the placer?"

"Two fellies over in Carbonate. The company did be thryin' to buy the
claim, but the sharps wouldn't sell--bein' put up to hold ut by thim
C. G. R. divils. It's more throuble we'll be havin' here, I'm
thinking."

While they lingered a shrill whistle, echoing like an eldrich laugh
among the cliffs of the upper gorge, announced the coming of a train
from the direction of Carbonate. Adams looked at his watch.

"I'd like to know what that is," he mused. "It's an hour too soon for
the accommodation. By Jove!"

The exclamation directed itself at a one-car train which came
thundering down the canyon to pull in on the siding beyond the
Rosemary. The car was a passenger coach, well-lighted, and from his
post on the embankment Adams could see armed men filling the windows.
Michael Branagan saw them, too, and the fighting Celt in him rose to
the occasion.

"'Tis Donnybrook Fair we've come to this time, Misther Adams. Shall I
call up the b'ys wid their guns?"

"Not yet. Let's wait and see what happens."

What happened was a peaceful sortie. Two men, each with a kit of some
kind borne in a sack, dropped from the car, crossed the creek, and
struggled up the hill through the unbridged gap. Adams waited until
they w