The Colonel began to laugh, while Zack, highly elated, said:

"Dat wuz a plague, Marse Brent!"

"Well, don't I know it?" he looked pitifully up at him.

"Naw, sah," Zack laughed again. "I mean de 'Gyptians didn' have no
drought; dey had de plague dem seben yeahs! I 'member dat story!"

"Zack, this isn't any time to split hairs over what the Egyptians had.
Come out of the ages, and focus your mind on what I've got!"

The old fellow disappeared with a chuckle, still audible after reaching
the dining-room. The Colonel, too, was chuckling.

"It's all right to laugh, Colonel, and make everybody hate you, but
I'll bet we walked forty miles! From the very moment that human engine
cranked himself up this morning, he's been pressing the accelerator with
spark advanced every second of the time. Don't think I'm crazy, but gas
engine terms are the only ones to describe him. The next time he and I
go on that survey, I go alone--which accounts for the Mac in McElroy,"
he added with a grin.

"Never mind," the old gentleman said, "you'll feel better in a few
minutes."

"That's just the trouble," Brent complained. "If I hadn't lapped up so
much of your delectable nose-paint, that hayseed couldn't have walked me
to death. I'm as good a man as he is any day--when in condition!"

Jane, standing within the hall, heard this, and at once perceived the
great dawning hope which chance had suddenly thrust before her. It was a
hope for the railroad, for her people. Passing into the library she
looked over Dale's shoulder, took the book from his hand, and smiled at
it.

"You can't make anything out of this, yet," she said. "If you want to
build railroads yourself some time, what you need now is actual
experience; and you can get it if you persist."

"How?" he asked eagerly.

"Make Brent go out every day till the work is done--then I've a plan for
you."

"What?" he was growing very much excited.

"Sh," she laughed. "I'll tell you some other time. Now go up and dress;
dinner will be ready in half an hour."

As he sprang to obey, a glance at his determined jaw, the enthusiasm of
his stride, told her that Brent might not henceforth have such an idle
time of it. His voice came in to her now.

"----and he threw all the lunch away," he was telling the Colonel,
"because he said we didn't have time to eat it. I wanted to kill him;
and would, if it hadn't struck me as being so darned funny! But I will
say that we did more than I've ever