we could hardly
hold on to the bridge. Still, the construction foreman was a hustler,
and we had to get the spikes in. I was swinging the hammer when I felt
the plank beneath me slip. The train, it seems, had jarred the bolt we
had our lashings round loose. For a moment I felt that I was going
down into the gorge, and then Gregory leaned out and grabbed me. He
had only one free hand to do it with, and when he felt my weight one
foot swung out from the stringer he had sprung to. It seemed certain
that I would pull him with me, too. We hung like that for a space--I
don't quite know how long."

He paused for a moment, apparently feeling the stress of it again, and
there was a faint thrill in his voice when he went on.

"It was then," he said, "I knew just what kind of man Gregory Hawtrey
was. Anybody else would have let me go; but he held on. Then I got my
hand on some of the framing, and he swung me on to the stringer."

He saw the gleam in Agatha's eyes. "Oh!" she said, "that is just what
he must have done. He was like that always--impulsive, splendidly
generous."

Wyllard felt that he had succeeded, though he knew that there were men
on the prairie who called his comrade slackly careless, instead of
impulsive. Agatha, however, spoke again.

"But Gregory wasn't a carpenter," she said.

"In those days when dollars were scanty we had to be whatever we could.
There wasn't much specialisation of handicrafts out there then. The
farmer whose crop was ruined took up the railroad shovel, or borrowed a
saw from somebody and set about building houses, or anything else that
was wanted."

"Of course!" said Agatha. "Besides, he was always wonderfully quick.
He could learn any game by just watching it awhile. He did all he
undertook brilliantly."

It occurred to Wyllard that Gregory had, at least, made no great
success of farming; but that occupation, as practised on the prairie,
demands a good deal more than quickness and what some call brilliancy
from the man who undertakes it. He must, as they say out there,
possess the capacity for staying with it; the grim courage to hold fast
the tighter under each crushing blow, when his teams die, or the grain
shrivels under the harvest frost, or ragged ice hurtling before a
roaring blast does the reaping. It was, however, evident that this
girl had an unquestioning faith in Gregory Hawtrey, and once more
Wyllard felt compassionate towards her. He wondered if she wo