but his contract was only
beginning to be profitable. Besides, one thing led to another, and a
number of extras, for which the pay was good, had been added to the
original plans. Then he had been asked to undertake another job and had
arranged to go over the ground with Kerr and Norton that morning. In
a way, he would sooner have left it alone, because it would keep him
longer from home, but the terms offered a strong inducement to stop.
Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly time to meet the engineers.

He found them and Charnock near the half-finished bridge, which crossed
the river obliquely. The track approached its end in a curve and then
stopped where a noisy steam-digger was at work. Between the machine and
the bridge, the hillside fell in a very steep slope to the water, which
rolled in angry turmoil past its foot, and the channel dividing the bank
from the island that supported the central bridge-pier was deep. Here
and there a slab of rock projected from the slope, but, for the most
part, the latter consisted of small stones and soil. The surface was now
frozen beneath a thin crust of snow and the pines were white.

"You know roughly what we want," said Kerr. "If you'll come along, you
can look at the shot-holes we made to test the ground. Then I'll show
you a car-load of the rock we want to use, but it's largely a lumber
job and that's why we thought of offering it you. You have some good
choppers besides the teams and plant required."

They climbed about the bank by dangerous paths, and then stopped at the
end of the bridge.

"The thing can be done, but it will only make a temporary job," Festing
remarked. "You will have to do it again, properly, in a year or two."

"That the Company's business," Kerr replied. "As soon as we start the
traffic improvements can be paid for out of revenue instead of piling up
construction costs."

"You can imagine the cost if we cut back the hill far enough to ease
the curve and lay the track on solid ground," Norton interposed. "The
half-measure of scooping out a shallow road-bed and dumping the stuff on
the incline is ruled out, because the spoil wouldn't lie and the river
would sweep the dirt away. If we filled up the channel with rock, we'd
turn the current on the bridge-pier."

Then Charnock said something and Festing let them talk while he looked
about. Since a temporary job was required, he thought the plan was
perhaps the best that could be used. It called