m frankly, a smile, almost mischievous, in her face. The hard,
harassed look between his eyes and about his drawn mouth melted away,
and he repeated the question: "What's the matter with me? You're the
doctor. I'll take whatever medicine you say."

"You didn't take Mr. Peterson's suggestion very well--about taking a
holiday, I mean. I don't know whether I dare prescribe for you or not. I
don't think you need a day off. I think that, next to a good, long
vacation, the best thing for you is excitement." He laughed. "No, I mean
it. You're tired out, of course, but if you have enough to occupy your
mind, you don't know it. The trouble to-day is that everything is going
too smoothly. You weren't a bit afraid yesterday that the elevator
wouldn't be done on time. That was because you thought there was going
to be a strike. And if just now the elevator should catch on fire or
anything, you'd feel all right about it again."

He still half suspected that she was making game of him, and he looked
at her steadily while he turned her words over in his mind. "Well," he
said, with a short laugh, "if the only medicine I need is excitement,
I'll be the healthiest man you ever saw in a little while. I guess I'll
find Pete. I must have made him feel pretty sore."

"Pete," he said, coming upon him in the marine tower a little later,
"I've got over my stomach-ache. Is it all right?"

"Sure," said Pete; "I didn't know you was feeling bad. I was thinking
about that belt gallery, Charlie. Ain't it time we was putting it up?
I'm getting sort of nervous about it."

"There ain't three days' work in it, the way we're going," said Bannon,
thoughtfully, his eyes on the C. & S. C. right-of-way that lay between
him and the main house, "but I guess you're right. We'll get at it now.
There's no telling what sort of a surprise party those railroad fellows
may have for us. The plans call for three trestles between the tracks.
We'll get those up to-day."

To Pete, building the gallery was a more serious business. He had not
Bannon's years of experience at bridge repairing; it had happened that
he had never been called upon to put up a belt gallery before, and this
idea of building a wooden box one hundred and fifty feet long and
holding it up, thirty feet in air, on three trestles, was formidable.
Bannon's nonchalant air of setting about it seemed almost an
affectation.

Each trestle was to consist of a rank of four posts, planted in a line
at righ