he draft.

"Well," he remarked, as he pointed to the hillside, "it would be quite
hard to fancy there was very much the matter with him now."

Wisbech agreed with Gordon when he saw a man, who was running hard,
beside four brawny oxen that were hauling a great dressed fir-log by a
chain. They came from an opening between the pines, and rushed along
the rude trail, which had a few skids across it. The trail led
downhill just there, and man and oxen went down the slope furiously in
the attempt to keep ahead of the big log that jolted over the skids
behind them. Wisbech had never seen cattle of any kind progress in
that fashion before, but he naturally did not know that the Bush-bred
ox can travel at a headlong pace up and down hills and amidst thickets
a man would cautiously climb or painfully crawl through. As they
approached the level at the foot of the slope, the man who drove them
ran back, and slipping his handspike under it, swung the butt of the
log round an obstacle. Wisbech gazed at his nephew with astonishment
when Nasmyth came up with the beasts again. His battered wide hat was
shapeless, his duck trousers were badly rent, and the blue shirt,
which was all he wore above the waist, hung open half-way down his
breast. He was flushed and gasping, but the men upon the trestle were
evidently urging him to fresh exertion.

"Oh, hit her hard!" shouted one of them; and a comrade clinging to a
beam high above the river broke in: "We're waiting. Get a hump on.
Bring her right along."

It was evident that Nasmyth was already doing all that reasonably
could have been expected of him, and in another moment or two, four
more men, who ran out of the Bush, fell upon the log with handspikes,
as the beasts came to a long upward slope. They went up it savagely,
and Wisbech was conscious of a growing amazement as he watched the
floundering oxen and gasping men.

"Do you always work--like this?" he asked.

Gordon laughed. "Well," he answered, "it isn't the bosses' fault when
we don't. As it happens, however, a good many of us are putting a
contract through, and the boys want to get that beam fixed before the
fast freight comes along. If they don't, it's quite likely she'll
shake it loose or pitch some of them off the bridge. It has stood a
few years, and wants stiffening."

"A few years!" said Wisbech. "There are bridges in England that have
existed since the first railways were built. I believe they don't
require any grea