climb upon der shteeple,
Und she frighten all der people,
Singin' michnai--ghignai--shtingal! Yah! Yah!'"

she quoted; and Ford's heart went out to her in new and comradely
outreachings.

"You read _Naught-naught-seven_?" he said: "you are one woman in a
thousand."

"_Merci!_" she countered. "Small favors thankfully received. Brother
thinks there is only one person writing, nowadays, and the name of that
person is Kipling. I get a little of it by mere attrition."

The brakes of the big engine were still gripping the wheels when a small
man with wicked mustaches and goatee dropped from the gangway. His khaki
suit was weather-faded to a dirty green, and he was grimy and perspiring
and altogether unpresentable; but he pulled himself together and tried
to look pleasant when he saw that his chief had a companion, and that
the companion was a lady.

"I'm sorry if I have kept you waiting," he began. "Gallagher was
shifting steel for the track-layers when your wire found me, and the
engine couldn't be spared,"--this, of course, to Ford. Then, with an
apologetic side glance for the lady: "Riley's in hot water again--up to
his chin."

"What's the matter now?" gritted Ford; and Alicia marked the instant
change to masterful command.

"Same old score. The Italians are kicking again at the MacMorrogh
Brothers' commissary--because they have to pay two prices and get chuck
that a self-respecting dog wouldn't eat; and, besides, they say they
are quarrying rock--which is true--and getting paid by the MacMorroghs
for moving earth. They struck at noon to-day."

The chief frowned gloomily, and the president's niece felt intuitively
that her presence was a bar to free speech.

"It's straight enough about the rotten commissary and the graft on the
pay-rolls," said Ford wrathfully. "Is the trouble likely to spread to
the camps farther down?"

"I hope not; I don't think it will--without whisky to help it along,"
said Frisbie, with another apologetic side glance for Miss Adair.

"Yes; but the whisky isn't lacking--there's Pete Garcia and his stock of
battle, murder and sudden death at Paint Rock, a short half-mile from
Riley's," Ford broke in.

Frisbie's smile, helped out by the grime and the coal dust, was
triumphantly demoniacal.

"Not now there isn't," he amended; adding: "Any fire-water at Paint
Rock, I mean. When Riley told me what was doing, I made a bee line for
Garcia's wickiup and notified him officially that he'd