ssing,' ten miles
below. If I could have got a down-river boat I should have boarded her
and gone in pursuit, sending the men back to tell you what I had done.
As we were unable to hail the only one that passed, I gave it up and
came back to report progress."

"Oh, I am so glad you did!" cried Mrs. Caspar.

"So am I," said the young stranger, speaking for the first time since
the Major's entrance. The latter had glanced curiously at him once or
twice while talking to his wife, but without a gleam of recognition.
Now, as he looked inquiringly at him again, Mrs. Caspar exclaimed:

"Why, John, don't you know him? It's William--my own brother William,
just come from California."

"So it is," replied the Major, giving the young man a hearty
hand-shake--"so it is, William Brackett himself. But, my dear fellow,
I must confess I was so far from recognizing you that I thought your
name was--"

"'Mud' I reckon," interrupted the other, laughing; "and so it will be
before long, if I don't get a chance to clean up. But, Major, by the
time both of us are wrung out and dried, and sister has looked up some
dinner, I'll be ready to unfold a plan that will make things look as
bright for you and Winn and the rest of us as the sun that's breaking
away the clouds is going to make the sky directly."

Mrs. Caspar's brother William, "Billy Brackett," as all his friends
called him, was a young civil engineer of more than usual ability. He
had already gained a larger stock of experience and seen more of his
own country than most men of his age, which was about twenty-six. From
government work in the East and on the lower Mississippi he had gone to
the Kansas Pacific Railway, been detailed to accompany an exploring
party across the plains, and, after spending some time on the Pacific
coast, had just returned to the Mississippi Valley--out of a job, to be
sure, but with the certainty of obtaining one whenever he should want
it. From the moment of leaving San Francisco he had intended making
the Caspars a visit, and had directed his journey towards their home.
In Chicago he had run across an engineering friend named Hobart, who
was at that moment regretting the pressure of business that forbade his
trying for what promised to be a most profitable contract. It was one
for furnishing all the bridge timber to be used in the construction of
a new railway through Wisconsin. The bids were to be opened in Madison
two days later. Acting u