with happy songs,
for they were going East--to civilisation.

Then Torrance had gone to take a last look at O'Connor's progress, and
O'Connor had turned haggard eyes on his friend and bent his head over
his arms and wept. The quicksands were beating him.

Torrance fled back to the end-of-steel village at Mile 127, that
ghastly face before him, the picture of a strong man weeping. And for
three days he drank himself to forgetfulness.

On the morning of the fourth day he rolled up his sleeves again, waved
his hand after the fleeing O'Connor, and signed a fresh contract for
himself. Nature, the enemy he had been threshing into submission all
his life, was not going to block the beautiful grade he had built.
With the effects of the acidulated poison of Mile 127 still in his
limbs but clear of his brain he shook his fist at the quicksands.

And now, eleven months later, he was still shaking his fist--and his
curses were deeper and more bitter. For the quicksands were fighting
to the last ditch, swallowing whole forests of trees and hills of rock,
and opening its maw for more. Friends urged Torrance to ask leave to
move the grade north or south to sounder bottom. But Torrance was not
built that way. Besides, he had great reverence for a survey. Even a
bridge, where a filled-in trestle was planned--a bridge with a span two
hundred yards long--impossible!

Torrance stood in the doorway and cast his eye along the line of steel
above the trestle. Only a week ago it had been shored up again, and
fewer supply trains than usual had passed. Yet it was down six inches.

The orchestra Chico Morani, a mere Dago bohunk himself, had organised
among the men, burst afresh. And every other sound ceased. Even the
gambling groups out before the camp paused to listen.

"Morani's started on the second number, Tressa. Thank Heaven he has
one redeeming feature, if he is a Wop."

"This isn't your loving night, daddy. It must be my cooking--"

"There's Koppy just come out of his shack. A couple with him, Werner
and Heppel, I bet."

"Dear me!" she teased out to him. "And I've been so careful with the
meals." A few moments of mirror concentration. "But I know what it
really is--that trestle. It's nerves. . . . Till that hole's filled
you're just an ordinary sick man. . . . And you know you can't stand
the twilight. Come in and light up. . . . Adrian'll be here in a few
minutes and read you back to peace. . . . And do