let of firwood that had been used to wedge the
rails.

"I can't sleep with all this circus going on," he said gruffly. "Make
any more trouble and off you go."

The other man apparently decided to lie still, and his comrade turned
to Weston.

"Guess the construction boss isn't going to find them tally out right
to-morrow," he observed, "We've lost quite a few of them coming up the
line."

He went to sleep again soon afterward, and Weston was left in peace.
In front of him the great locomotive snorted up the climbing track,
hurling clouds of sparks aloft. Misty pines went streaming by, the
chill night wind rushed past, the cars banged and clanked, and now and
then odd bursts of harsh laughter or discordant singing broke through
the roar of wheels. It was very different from the deep tranquillity
of the wilderness and the quiet composure of the people with whom he
had spent the last few weeks, but, as Ida Stirling had suggested,
Weston's blood was red, and he was still young enough to find pleasure
in every fresh draught of the wine of life. It was something to feel
himself the equal in bodily strength and animal courage of these
strong-armed men who were going to fill up the muskeg.

CHAPTER VII

GRENFELL'S MINE

It was Saturday evening, and Weston sat on a ledge of the hillside
above the silent construction camp, endeavoring to mend a pair of duck
trousers that had been badly torn in the bush. He held several strips
of a cotton flour-bag in one hand, and was considering how he could
best make use of them without unduly displaying the bold lettering of
the brand, though in the bush of that country it was not an unusual
thing for a man to go about labeled "Early Riser," or somebody's
"Excelsior." His companions had trooped off to the settlement about a
league away, and a row of flat cars stood idle on the track which now
led across the beaten muskeg. On the farther side of the latter, the
tall pines lay strewn in rows, but beyond the strip of clearing the
bush closed in again, solemn, shadowy, and almost impenetrable. There
was a smell of resinous wood-smoke in the air, but save for the
distant sound of the river everything was very still.

Weston looked up sharply as a patter of approaching footsteps rose out
of the shadows behind him. Some of the men were evidently coming back
from the settlement earlier than he had expected. In a few minutes
three or four of them appeared among the trees, and he recog