e no windows
save high overhead, and only two doors. One of these was a great
sliding affair where the wagons backed up, and the other was small but
equally solid. It was a huge box of heavy timber, most of it
constituting the bin itself, but the old fellow showed it proudly--nor
was his pride misplaced, for with this great cube of massive timber,
his neighbors had met and overcome a perplexing handicap of nature.

They climbed a ladder and looked down into the reservoir partly filled
with golden grain, and Jerry, noticing a coil of rope hanging from an
upright, inquired: "Did ye hev a lynchin' in hyar by way of
house-warmin'?"

McGivins laughed, but his narrative had not yet come to uses of that
rope, and he refused to be hurried.

"Ye sees," he zestfully enlightened, "we've got a sort of table land of
wheat ground hyarabouts thet raises master crops--an' we've got a
railroad runnin' right past our doors ter haul hit out ter ther world
below."

"No wonder folks hyarabouts hes got prosperity," mused Alexander a
little enviously, thinking of her rocky hillsides on Shoulder-blade.

"Yes, but ther road didn't do us no great lavish of good--'twell we
deevised this hyar thing," her uncle reminded her. "Hit jest kinderly
aggravated us. Ye see our fields lays on high ground an' ther railroad
runs through a deep chasm. We kain't git down ter hit, nigh es hit be,
withouten we teams over slavish ways fer siv'ral steep miles. Now I'll
tek ye down ther clift an' show ye what's down thar--an' how we licked
thet mountain."

He led them out and down a narrow path, where they had to hold to
branch and root until they reached the bottom of a deep ravine--and
there one hundred and fifty feet lower was another huge bin, open at
its top, and connected with the upper structure by an almost vertical
chute.

So after all it was a piece of highly creditable engineering. It
enabled the grower to weigh and store his product above, and then by
opening the runway to deposit it at the rails. In only one respect
would an engineer have quarreled with the arrangement. The long lever
that loosened and held the flowing tide of grain operated from outside
the upper building instead of from within.

"What's ter hinder a thief from comin' in ther night-time," demanded
Jerry practically, "an' runnin' hisself out a wagon-load of thet thar
stuff an' haulin' hit off?"

The elder's face fell a little.

"Thet's a far question," he acknowle