htened and the slack disappeared under Smaltz's steady pull.
The carpenter and the crew watched the cross-arm anxiously as the strain
came upon it under the taut wire. Their faces brightened as it held.

Smaltz looked at Jennings quizzically.

"More?"

"You ain't heard me tell you yet to stop," was the snarling answer.

"Here goes, then." Smaltz's face wore an expressive grin as he put his
strength on the rope of the block-and-tackle, which gave him the pull of
a four-horse team.

Bruce heard the cross-arm splinter as he came up the trail through the
brush.

Jennings turned to Woods and said offensively:

"Old as you are, I guess I kin learn you somethin' yet."

The carpenter's face had turned white. With a gesture Bruce stopped his
belligerent advance.

"Try the next one, Jennings," he said quietly.

Once more the slack was taken up and the wire grew taut--so taut it
would have twanged like a fiddle-string if it had been struck. Jennings
did not give Smaltz the sign to stop even when the cross-arm cracked.
Without a word of protest Bruce watched the stout four-by-five splinter
and drop off.

"There--you see--I told you so! I knowed!" Jennings looked triumphantly
at the carpenter as he spoke. Then, turning to the crew: "Knock 'em
off--every one. _Now_ I'll do it right!"

Not a man moved and for an instant Bruce dared not trust himself to
speak. When he did speak it was in a tone that made Jennings look up
startled:

"You'll come across the river and get your time." His surprise was
genuine as Bruce went on--"Do you imagine," he asked savagely, trying to
steady his voice, "that I haven't intelligence enough to know that
you've got to allow for the swaying of the trees in the wind, for the
contraction and expansion of heat and cold, for the weight of snow and
sleet? Do you think I haven't brains enough to see when you're
deliberately destroying another man's work? I've been trying to make
myself believe in you--believe that in spite of your faults you were
honest. Now I know that you've been drawing pay for months for work you
don't know how to do. I can't see any difference between you and any
common thief who takes what doesn't belong to him. Right here you quit!
Vamoose!" Bruce made a sweeping gesture--"You go up that hill as quick
as the Lord will let you."

XXIII

"GOOD ENOUGH"

"Alf" Banule, the electrical genius for whom Jennings had sent to help
him rewind an armature and who therefor