greeted it was not so free and spontaneous as
she hoped to hear. "In less than that," he said fervently, "I hope
we'll be back in Medicine Hat. Torrance is giving orders to start the
fill-in, and there won't be more than two or three weeks after that.
Truth to tell, there are lots of other reasons than home that make me
want to get out of it in a hurry. It isn't that we have much to
do--too little, indeed; I'd grow rusty and evil-tempered with another
season of this--but I confess to a great mental blank in considering
the bohunk . . . and I've no ambition to understand him better. The
more I know him, the more I think Providence was experimenting without
encouragement when he created a few of those Continental countries that
send their scum over here to build railways. Really there hasn't been
a thing happen since I came worth writing about. Of course there are
strange little incidents--"

He broke off abruptly and his head went up. From the east drifted a
purring sound that swelled with startling speed. Faster than their
thoughts, it grew to a roar. Helen was alarmed.

"Only gasoline speeders," he explained. "You must ride on one.
Torrance has a rather grubby specimen. They're the wildest form of
slimpsy-skimpsy flight you ever saw. About forty miles an hour, with
just a board and a tremendous sputter between you and the flying rails.
It makes your hair curl, yet you look forward to the next time."

Lightly as he spoke, he had risen to his feet and gone to the doorway.

"Some of the big moguls of construction, I suppose," he shouted back
above the echoing din. "Perhaps to pass on Torrance's trestle before
the fill-in commences. Holy mackinaw! they're scorching. I ought to
arrest them for exceeding the speed limit. . . . They're without
lights, too!" he exclaimed suddenly.

Two dim objects flew past in the darkness like shadows, not forty yards
away, a space of less than fifty yards between them.

"They must be drunk!" he muttered. "They're taking awful chances to
run as close as that at such a speed. Look as if they're loaded. Rush
stuff, I suppose, for the line further west. . . . I hope they don't
try to take Torrance's trestle at that gait; it would be an awful
plunge." He returned thoughtfully to the table. "First time I've seen
a speeder along here, except Torrance's and the contractor's at Mile
190. . . . I don't understand it."

Helen closed the door firmly. The roar dimmed into