pikes, with the weight of
the engine settling them, drove the sleds along at a moderate rate of
speed. The problem of the lake transportation was settled. When Parker
quickened the pace to something like twelve miles an hour, the men
cheered him hoarsely.

The trip to Poquette was exhilarating and uneventful. Parker left his
fireman to look after the "train," and accompanied by an interested
retinue of citizens, tramped across the six miles of carry road on a
preliminary tour of inspection.

He returned well satisfied.

The route was fairly level; a few detours would save all cuts, and the
plan of trestles would do away with fills. With the eye of the practised
engineer, Parker saw that neither survey nor construction involved any
special problems. Therefore he selected his landing on the Spinnaker
shore, and resolved to make all haste in hauling his material across the
lake.

When the expedition arrived at Sunkhaze at dusk, the postmaster brought
the information that Colonel Ward had stormed away on the down-train
with certain hints about getting some law on his own account. He had
sworn over and over in most ferocious fashion that the Poquette Carry
road should not be built so long as law and dynamite could be bought.

For two days Parker peacefully transported material, twenty tons a
trip and two trips a day. On the evening of the third day Colonel Ward
arrived from the city, accompanied by a sharp-looking lawyer. The two
immediately hastened away across the lake toward Poquette.

Parker had twenty men garrisoned in a log camp at the carry, and had
little fear that his supplies would be molested. It was hardly credible,
either, that a man with as extensive property interests as Colonel Ward
possessed would dare to destroy wantonly the goods of a railroad company
in the strong position of the Poquette road. However, Parker resolved
to make a survey at once, in order to put the swampers at work chopping
trees and clearing the right of way.

When he left the cab of his engine the next forenoon at Poquette, he saw
the furred figure of Colonel Ward in front of his carry camp a sort of
half-way station for the timber operator's itinerant crews. The lawyer
was at his elbow.

Parker ignored their presence.

A half-hour later the young engineer had established his Spinnaker
terminal point, and was running his lines. Still no word from the
colonel, who was tramping up and down in front of the camp. Parker's
whimsic