o smoke. Gertrude Brock took refuge in a
book and Mrs. Whitney, her aunt, annoyed her with stories. Marie Brock
and Louise Donner placed their chairs where they could watch the
sorting and unloading of never-ending strings of flat cars, the
spasmodic activity in the lines of laborers, the hurrying of the
foremen and the movement of the rapidly shifting fringe of men on the
danger line at the dike.

The clouds which had opened for the dying splendor of the day closed
and a shower swept over the valley; the conductor came back in his
raincoat--his party were at dinner. "_Are_ we to be detained much
longer?" asked Mrs. Whitney.

"For a little while, I'm afraid," replied the trainman diplomatically.
"I've been away over there on the dike to see if I could get permission
to cross, but I didn't succeed."

"Oh, conductor!" remonstrated Louise Donner.

"And we don't get to Medicine Bend to-night," said Doctor Lanning.

"What we need is a man of influence," suggested Harrison. "We ought
never to have let your 'pa' go," he added, turning to Gertrude Brock,
beside whom he sat.

"Can't we really get ahead?" Gertrude lifted her brows reproachfully
as she addressed the conductor. "It's becoming very tiresome."

O'Brien shook his head.

"Why not see someone in authority?" she persisted.

"I have seen the man in authority, and nearly fell into the river doing
it; then he turned me down."

"Did you tell him who we were?" demanded Mrs. Whitney.

"I made all sorts of pleas."

"Does he know that Mr. Bucks _promised_ we should be In Medicine Bend
to-night?" asked pretty little Marie Brock.

"He wouldn't in the least mind that."

Mrs. Whitney bridled. "Pray who is he?"

"The construction engineer of the mountain division is the man in
charge of the bridge just at present."

"It would be a very simple matter to get orders over his head,"
suggested Harrison.

"Not very."

"Mr. Bucks?"

"Hardly. No orders would take us over that bridge to-night without
Glover's permission."

"What an autocrat!" sighed Mrs. Whitney. "No matter; I don't care to
go over it, anyway."

"But I do," protested Gertrude. "I don't feel like staying in this
water all night, if you please."

"I'm afraid that's what we'll have to do for a few hours. I told Mr.
Glover he would be in trouble if I didn't get my people to Medicine
Bend to-night."

"Tell him again," laughed Doctor Lanning.

Conductor O'Brien looked embarrassed. "You'