hat on earth has that girl said or done to the men to fetch a cheer
from them!" ejaculated Will Hallam.

"Reckon Little Missie's jest done bewitched 'em," responded Bob, as he
poured batter into his pans.

A moment later Barbara, with a face that had not yet relaxed its look of
intense earnestness, returned to the fire, and resumed her work over
the frying pans.

"Thank you, Mr. Duncan," was all she said in recognition of his service
as a maker of griddle cakes. But she added:

"The men will stick to work, now, I think--or most of them, at any rate.
Perhaps you and Mr. Temple can do something to shorten it--to lessen the
amount."

Then, turning to Bob, she issued her orders:

"Bring the hog, Bob, as quickly as you can. There's barely time to roast
it, before noon."

The men had nearly all had their breakfasts now, so that the making of
griddle cakes had about ceased. Hallam, Duncan, and the young engineer,
Temple, taking new courage from Barbara's report concerning the
disposition of the men, were going about among the gangs, wading knee
deep in water and mud, and giving such directions as were needed.

Duncan, especially, was rendering service. As an old soldier, who had
had varied experience in the hurried construction of earthworks under
difficulties, he was able in many ways to hasten the present work. One
thing he hit upon which went far to make success possible. That end of
the crib which reached and crossed the county line offered a cavernous
space to be filled in. It was thickly surrounded by trees, and Duncan
ordered all these felled, directing the chopping so that the trunks and
branches should fall into the crib. Then setting men to chop off such
of the branches as protruded above the proposed embankment level, and
let them fall into the unoccupied spaces, he presently had that part of
the crib loosely filled in with a tangled mass of timber and tree tops.

Gangs of men were meanwhile pushing cars along the temporary track, and
dumping their loads of earth among the felled trees. Duncan, with a
small gang, was extending these temporary tracks along the crib as fast
as the earth dumped in provided a sufficient bed.

This work of filling was very slow, of course, and when Duncan's watch
showed ten o'clock, he was well-nigh ready to despair. Under the strain
of his anxiety he had forgotten to take any breakfast, and the prolonged
exposure to water and rain had so far depressed his vitality that he now