the P. C. & W.
thieves playin' into that scoundrel Swinnerton's hands, where do we
get off? We send for a hundred men, an' it saves Swinnerton the
trouble an' expense of a wire. By now every man jack of them is makin'
fences an' buildin' houses for him, or I'm the worst-fooled man in the
country." And he swung off into a string of curses which would not
have been unworthy of Ben the Englishman.

One afternoon when they had run the ditch through the Seven Knolls and
were cutting rapidly through a level stretch with a double line of
smaller hills a mile ahead of the foremost team, Truxton came striding
along the ditch to where Conniston was standing.

"Think you can handle all four gangs without me for the rest of the
afternoon?" he asked, as he came to Conniston's side.

"Yes," answered Conniston. "I can handle them."

Truxton laughed softly.

"You're comin' ahead, youngster. Wouldn't have wanted the job a week
ago, would you? I believe you could handle 'em, too. But I'll do it
this trip. I want you to go to the office for me. See Tommy and run
over these figures with him. I told you last night that I was sure of
'em. To-day I'm gettin' balled up. Tell him that I'm puttin' a gang on
that double line of hills first thing in the mornin'. Run over the
thing with him and verify our figures. If there's anything left of the
afternoon when you get through you can take it off an' see the sights
in Valley City. Find out how they're fixed for water an' grub an'
wood. Tommy's got all that dope at the tip of his tongue. An' be back
here the first thing in the mornin'."

He went back to his work, and Conniston hurried away, decidedly glad
for the change of work. Just to grip his horse between his knees, to
swing out alone across the rolling fields, to drink deep of the
untroubled stillness of the wide places, to be an independent, swiftly
moving figure with nothing to break the silent harmony of the still,
hot sky above and the still, hot sands beneath--a harmony which the
soul leaped out to meet--brought a quiet, peaceful content. The day
was serene and perfect, like yesterday and to-morrow in this land of
dreary barrenness and of infinite possibility; the faint blue of the
cloudless sky met the gray monotone of the earth between two mounds in
front of him; and as his horse's hoofs fell noiselessly, as though
upon padded felt, his sensation was that of drifting across the wide
sweep of a gently swelling ocean toward a landloc