he note-book shut and rose to his feet. "Gentlemen, that
is not the talk of engineers," he said, deliberately.

"The hell you say! What is it, then?" burst out Coffee, his face
flushing redder.

"I'll inform you later," replied Neale, turning to the lineman. "Somers,
tell this gang boss, Colohan, I want him."

Neale left the tent. He had started to walk away when he heard Blake
speak up in a fierce undertone.

"Didn't I tell you? We're up against it!"

And Coffee growled a reply Neale could not understand. But the tone of
it was conclusive. These men had made a serious blunder and were blaming
each other, hating each other for it. Neale was conscious of anger. This
section of line came under his survey, and he had been proud to be given
such important and difficult work. Incompetent or careless engineers
had bungled Number Ten. Neale strode on among the idle and sleeping
laborers, between the tents, and then past the blacksmith's shop and the
feed corrals down to the river.

A shallow stream of muddy water came murmuring down from the hills.
It covered the wide bed that Neale remembered had been a dry,
sand-and-gravel waste. On each side the abutment piers had been
undermined and washed out. Not a stone remained in sight. The banks were
hollowed inward and shafts of heavy boards were sliding down. In the
middle of the stream stood a coffer-dam in course of building, and near
it another that had collapsed. These frameworks almost hid the tip of
the middle pier, which had evidently slid over and was sinking on its
side. There was no telling what had been sunk in that hole. All the
surroundings--the tons of stone, cut and uncut, the piles of muddy
lumber, the platforms and rafts, the crevices in the worn shores up and
down both sides--all attested to the long weeks of fruitless labor and
to the engulfing mystery of that shallow, murmuring stream.

Neale returned thoughtfully to camp. Blake and Coffee were sitting under
the fly in company with a stalwart Irishman.

"Fine sink-hole you picked out for Number Ten, don't you think?" queried
Blake.

Neale eyed his interrogator with somewhat of a penetrating glance. Blake
did not meet that gaze frankly.

"Yes, it's a sink-hole, all right, and--no mistake," replied Neale.
"It's just what I calculated when I ran the plans.... Did you follow
those plans?"

Blake appeared about to reply when Coffee cut him short "Certainly we
did," he snapped.

"Then where are the bre