raulic plant began to arrive, piecemeal, Lisle
found Crestwick eminently useful. He superintended the transport,
patrolling the trails and keeping them repaired. His skill with shovel
and ax was negligible, but he could send a man or two to mend the gap
where the path had slipped away down some gully or to fling a couple of
logs across a swollen creek that could not be forded. He got thinner and
harder from constant toil and from sleeping, often scantily fed,
unsheltered in the rain.

After a while, however, there was a pleasant change: the days grew hot,
the nights were clear and cold, and the short, vivid summer broke
suddenly upon the mountain land. Then it seldom rained, as the high
seaward barrier condensed most of the Pacific moisture, but at times the
clouds which crossed the summits unbroken descended in a copious deluge,
and it was in the midst of such a downpour that Crestwick returned to
camp one evening after a week's absence on the trail. His dripping
garments were ragged, his boots gaped open, and his soft felt hat had
fallen shapeless about his head. He found Lisle in a similar guise
sitting at his evening meal.

"Have they got the pipes and those large castings across the big ravine?"
Lisle asked.

"Yes, that has been done," Crestwick answered. "By the way, one of the
packers told me that the man who's coming up to run the plant--Carsley,
isn't it?--has arrived. There were some fittings or something wrong and
he stopped behind to investigate, but the packer seemed to think he'd get
through soon after I did. That turns us loose, doesn't it?"

"I dare say I could hand things over to him in about a week," replied
Lisle. "Then we'll clear out. I suppose you won't be sorry?"

Crestwick stretched out his feet to display his broken boots and rent
trousers.

"Well," he said, "since I left here, I've spent a good deal of my time in
an icy creek, and it's nearly a week since I had any sleep worth speaking
of. We had to make a bridge for the freighters to bring those castings
over and we'd no end of trouble to get the stringers fixed--the stream
was strong and we had to build a pier in it. Not long ago, I'd have
considered anybody who did this kind of thing without compulsion mad, but
in some mysterious way it grows on you. I don't pretend to explain it,
but it won't be with unmixed delight that I'll go back to the city."

He paused and fumbled in his pocket.

"I was forgetting your mail. I'm afraid it's r