ht the mention of his own name, coupled with
derisive comment. His hands clenched. His red neck bulged. His big
lungs filled--then slowly deflated; and Martin went slowly homeward,
in silence.

"And is it your liver?" asked Jewel Garrity as they sat at dinner.

"It is not!" bawled Martin. He rose. He pulled his napkin from his
chin with Garrity emphasis and dropped it in the gravy. He thumped
about the table, then stopped.

One big freckled paw reached uncertainly outward and plunked with
intended gentleness upon the woman's shoulder, to rest, trembling
there, a second. Then silently Martin went on upstairs. For that touch
had told her that it was--his heart!

A heart that ached with a throbbing sorrow which could not be downed
as the summer passed and Martin heard again and again the reflexes
brought about by the purchase of his snow ploughs. Vainly he stormed
up and down the line of the Ozark Central with its thousands of
labourers. Vainly he busied himself with a thousand intricacies of
construction, in the hope of forgetfulness. None of it could take from
his mind the fact that railroad men were laughing at him, that
chuckling train-butchers were pointing out the giant machinery to
grinning passengers, that even the railroad journals were printing
funny quips about Barstow's prize superintendent and his mountain snow
plough. Nor could even the news that Aldrich, over on the Blue Ribbon
division, was allowing that once proud bit of rail to degenerate into
an ordinary portion of a railroad bring even a passing cheer. They,
too, were laughing! In a last doglike hope Martin looked up the
precipitation reports. It only brought more gloom. Only four times in
thirty years had there been a snowfall in Missouri that could block a
railroad!

The summer crept into autumn; autumn to early winter, bringing with it
the transformation of the rickety old Ozark Central to a smooth,
well-cushioned line of gleaming steel, where the trains shot to and
fro with hardly a tremor, where the hollow thunder of culvert and
trestle spoke of sturdy strength, where the trackwalker searched in
vain for loose plates or jutting joints; but to Garrity, it was only
the fulfilment or the work of a mechanical second nature. December was
gliding by in warmth and sunshine. January came, with no more than a
hatful of snow, and once more Martin found himself facing the
president.

"We'll win that contract, Martin!" It almost brought a smile to the