"Crosby? Yes, he's an engineer all right. And a gentleman, too. Just the same, I'm glad we kowtowed to Mr. Locke. His opinion is so influential that his approval may mean a tremendous advantage to the Breckenridge Company some day."

"I'm hoping that Breckenridge himself will come before long and give us a looking over."

"I'm hoping for that myself. Half an hour of Breck will swing everything into shape. You want to know Breckenridge if ever you get the chance, Hallowell. He's the grandest ever. Just to watch him tramp up and down a ditch, great big silent figure that he is, and hear him fire off those cool, close-mouthed questions of his at you, brings you bristling up like a fighting-c.o.c.k. He's a regular inspiration, I call him."

"I'm banking on the chance that I shall know him some day." Rod's eyes lighted. He remembered the words of his old professor, "To work under Breckenridge is not only an advantage to any engineer. It is an education in itself."

It was nearly six o'clock when their last callers arrived. They were not an interesting carriage load: a gaunt, silent, middle-aged man; a sallow-cheeked young woman, in cheap, showy clothes, her rough hands glittering with gaudy rings; and a six-year-old girl--a pitiful little ghost of a girl--who looked like a frail little shadow against Sally Lou's l.u.s.ty, rosy two-year-old son. Her warped, tiny body in its forlorn lace-trimmed pink silk dress was braced in pillows in her mother's arms. Her dim black eyes stared listlessly with the indifference of long suffering.

Marian was always shaken and repelled by the sight of pain. But by this time Thomas Tucker was awake and loudly demanding his mother; so Marian must do her shrinking best, to make the new-comers feel themselves welcomed.

"No, Mamie she don't drink lemonade. No, she don't want no milk, neither. We'll just set here in the cool and rest a while till pappy gets through lookin' around." The young, tired mother sat down on the little pier. She settled the wan little creature carefully into her arms again. "No, there's nothing you can get for her; nothing at all."

"Doesn't she like to look at pictures? I have some new magazines,"

ventured Marian.

"She does like pictures once in a while. Want to see what the lady's got for you, Mamie?"

Mamie roused herself and looked silently at the books that Marian piled before her. Bent on pleasing the little wraith, Marian cut out several lovely ladies, and on a sudden inspiration added rosy cheeks from Rod's tray of colored pencils.

Those red and blue and purple pencils caught Mamie's listless eye. She even bestirred herself to try and draw a portrait or so with her own shaky little fingers.

"Beats all," sighed her mother. A little pleased color rose in her cheeks. "I haven't seen her take such an interest for months. Not even in her dollies. We buy her all the playthings we can think of. Her pappy, he don't ever go to town without he up and brings her a whole grist of candy and toys and clutter. But we never once thought of the pencils for her. Nor of paper dolls, either. My, I'm glad we stopped by. And her pappy, he'll be more pleased than words can tell. He's always so heart-set for Mamie to have a little fun."

"She must take these pencils home with her. Rod has a whole boxful."

Marian tied up not only the pencils, but a generous roll of Rod's heavy drawing-paper, expressly adapted to making paper dolls that would stand alone. The child clutched the bundle in her little lean hands without a word of thanks. But her white little face was eloquent. So was her father's face when he came to carry her away, and heard her mother's story of the new pleasure.

"Well, this day has meant hard work all right, even though it was a day of rest from my regular work," said Roderick. He was swinging the launch up the ca.n.a.l to the Gates's Landing. "It's a queer way to spend Sunday, isn't it, Sis? But it seems to be the only way for me just at present. And you can be sure that we're obliged to you, old lady, for the way that you've held up your end."

"I didn't mind the day, nor did I mind meeting all those people nearly as much as I'd imagined that I would," pondered Marian. "Especially the McCloskeys, the dear things! And that poor little crippled child, too. I wish I could do something more for her. Y-yes, as you say, it was pretty hard work. I'm rather tired to-night. But the day was well worth while."

But just how worth while that day had been, neither Rod nor Marian could know.

CHAPTER VII

THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE

"Ready for breakfast, Miss Hallowell?" Mrs. Gates's pleasant voice summoned her.

"Just a minute." Marian loitered at the window, looking out at the transformed woods and fields. She could hardly believe her eyes. Two weeks ago only stark, leafless branches and muddy gray earth had stretched before her. But in these fourteen days, the magic of early April had wrought wonders. The trees stood clothed in shining new leaves, thick and luxuriant as a New England June. The fields were sheets of living green.

"It doesn't seem real," she sighed happily. "It isn't the same country that it was when I first came."

"No more are you the same girl." Mrs. Gates nodded approvingly behind the tall steaming coffee-pot. "My, you were that peaky and piney! But nowadays you're getting some real red in your cheeks, and you eat more like a human being and less like a canary-bird."

Marian twinkled.

"Your brother is gettin' to be the peaky one, nowadays," went on Mrs.

Gates, with her placid frankness. "Seems to me I never saw a boy look as beat out as he does, ever since that big cave-in on the ca.n.a.l last week. I'm thankful for this good weather for him. Maybe he can make up for the time they lost digging out the cave-in if it stays clear and the creeks don't rise any higher. He's a real worker, isn't he? Seems like he'd slave the flesh off his bones before he'd let his job fall behind. But I don't like to see him look so gaunt and tired. It isn't natural in a boy like him."

Marian looked puzzled.

"Why, Rod is always strong and well."

"He's strong, yes. But even strong folks can tire out. Flesh and blood aren't steel and wire. You'd better watch him pretty sharp, now that hot weather is coming. He needs it."

Marian pushed back her plate with a frown. Her dainty breakfast had suddenly lost its savor.

"Watch over Rod! I should think it was Rod's place to watch over me, instead. And when I have been so ill, too!" she said to herself.

Yet a queer little thorn of anxiety p.r.i.c.ked her. She called Mr.

Finnegan and raced with him down through the wet green woods to the ca.n.a.l. Roderick stood on the dredge platform, talking to the head dredge-runner. He hailed Marian with a shout.

"You're just in time to see me off, Sis. I'm going to Saint Louis to hurry up our coal shipment."

"The coal shipment? I thought a barge-load of coal was due here yesterday."

"Due, yes. But it hasn't turned up, and we're on our last car-load this minute. That's serious. We'll have to shut down if I can't hurry a supply to camp within thirty-six hours."

Marian followed him aboard the engineers' house-boat and watched him pack his suit-case.

"Why are you taking all those time-books, Rod? Surely you will not have time to make up your week's reports during that three-hour trip on the train?"

"These aren't my weekly reports. These are tabulated operating expenses. President St.u.r.devant, the head of our company, has just announced that he wants us to furnish data for every working day. He's a bit of a martinet, you know. He wants everything figured up into shape for immediate reference. He says he proposes to follow the cost of this job, excavation, fill, everything, within thirty-six hours of the time when the actual work is done. He doesn't realize that that means hours of expert book-keeping, and that we haven't a book-keeper in the camp. So Burford and I have had to tackle it, in addition to our regular work. And it's no trifle." Roderick rolled up a formidable ma.s.s of notes. There was a worried tone in his steady voice.

"Why doesn't the company send you a book-keeper?"

"Burford and I are planning to ask for one when the president and Breckenridge come to camp on their tour of inspection."

"Could I do some of the work for you, Rod?"

"Thank you, Sis, but I'm afraid you'd find it a Chinese puzzle. I get tangled up in it myself half the time. We must set down every solitary item of cost, no matter how trifling; not only wages and supplies, but breakdowns, time losses, even those of a few minutes; then calculate our average, day by day; then plot a curve for each week's work, showing the cost of the contract for that week, and set it against our yardage record for that week. Then verify it, item by item, and send it in."

"All tied up in beautiful red-tape bow-knots, I suppose," added Marian, with a sniff. She poked gingerly into the ma.s.s of papers. "The idea of adding book-keeping to your twelve-hour shift as superintendent! And in this stuffy, noisy little box!" She looked impatiently around the close narrow state-room. The ceiling was not two feet above her head; the hot morning sunlight beat on the flat tin roof of the house-boat and dazzled through the windows. "How can you work here?--or sleep, either?"

Rod rubbed his hand uncertainly across his eyes.

"I don't sleep much, for a fact. Too hot. Sometimes I drop off early, but the men always wake me at midnight when the last shift goes off duty."

"But the laborers are all across on their own quarter-boat. They don't come aboard your house-boat?"

"No, but the quarter-boat is only fifty feet away. The cook has their hot supper ready at twelve, and they lark over it, and laugh and shout and cut up high-jinks, like a pack of school-boys. I wouldn't mind, only I can't get to sleep again. I lie there and mull over the contract, you see. I can't help it."

"Why don't you come up to the Gates farm-house and sleep there?"