ch served as Mr. Colbrith's greeting when Ford presented himself at
the door of the private compartment.

Ford's reply lacked the deferential note. He had reached a point at
which his job was not worth as much as it had been.

"I have just brought Miss Adair back from the top of the pass, where we
met Mr. Frisbie, my chief of construction. I wished to ask him if he
thought the track was safe for your car, and he says, most emphatically,
that it is not. I can not take the responsibility of sending the Nadia
to the end-of-track."

The president's thin face was working irritably. "I haven't asked you to
assume any responsibility, Mr. Ford. If the track is safe for your
material trains, it is safe enough for my car. But I didn't send for you
to argue the point. I desire to have the Nadia taken to the front. Be
good enough to give the necessary orders."

Ford tried again. In addition to the precarious track there were few or
no unoccupied sidings, especially near the front. Moreover, there was no
telegraph service which might suffice for the safe despatching of the
special train. There might be entire sections over which the Nadia would
have to be flagged by a man on foot, and--

The president cut him off with almost childish impatience.

"I don't know what your object is in putting so many stumbling-blocks in
the way, Mr. Ford," he rasped. "A suspicious person might say that you
have been doing something which you do not wish to have found out."

Ford was a fair-skinned man, and the blood burned hotly in his face.
But, as once before under the president's nagging, he found his
self-control rising with the provocation.

"My work is open to inspection or investigation, now or at any time,
and I think we need not discuss that point," he said, when he could
force himself to say it calmly. "We were speaking of the advisability of
taking the Nadia and a pleasure party over a piece of raw construction
line, and into an environment which, to put it mildly, could hardly be
congenial to--to the ladies of the party. You know, or ought to know,
the MacMorroghs: their camps are not exactly models of propriety, Mr.
Colbrith."

This was merely waving a red flag at an already exasperated bull. The
president got upon his feet, and his shrill falsetto cut the air like a
knife.

"Mr. Ford, when I wish to be told what is or is not proper for me to do,
I'll ask you for an opinion, sir. But this is quite beside the mark.
Will you ord