son's, you know--wrote me that the Scotchman's
first general order was an edict banishing every woman from the
construction camps."

"Now, if he had only banished the derricks at the same time," commented
Gardiner reflectively. Then he added: "You may be sure the Fates will
find you an enchantress, Breckenridge; the oracles have spoken. What
would the most peerless Arcadia be without its shepherdess? But we are
jesting when Lassley appears to be very much in earnest. Could there be
anything more than coincidence in these fatalities?"

"How could there be?" demanded Ballard. "Two sheer accidents and one
commonplace tragedy, which last was the fault--or the misfortune--of
poor Billy's temperament, it appears; though he was a sober enough
fellow when he was here learning his trade. Let me prophesy awhile: I
shall live and I shall finish building the Arcadian dam. Now let us
side-track Lassley and his cryptogram and go back to what I was trying
to impress on your mind when he butted in; which is that you are not to
forget your promise to come out and loaf with me in August. You shall
have all the luxuries a construction camp affords, and you can geologise
to your heart's content in virgin soil."

"That sounds whettingly enticing," said the potential guest. "And,
besides, I am immensely interested in dams; and in wire cables that give
way at inopportune moments. If I were you, Breckenridge, I should make
it a point to lay that broken guy cable aside. It might make interesting
matter for an article in the _Engineer_; say, 'On the Effect of the
Atmosphere in High Altitudes upon Galvanised Wire.'"

Ballard paid the tributary laugh. "I believe you'd have your joke if you
were dying. However, I'll keep the broken cable for you, and the pool
where Braithwaite was drowned, and Sanderson's inamorata--only I suppose
Macpherson obliterated her at the earliest possible.... Say, by Jove!
that's my train he's calling. Good-by, and don't forget your promise."

After which, but for a base-runner's dash down the platform, Ballard
would have lost the reward of the strenuous day of changed plans at the
final moment.

II

THE TRIPPERS

It was on the Monday afternoon that Breckenridge Ballard made the
base-runner's dash through the station gates in the Boston terminal, and
stood in the rearmost vestibule of his outgoing train to watch for the
passing of a certain familiar suburb where, at the home of the
hospitable Lassleys, h