"Too bad to alarm you thus," he gasped. "I--I was afraid of this.

Malaria plays ugly tricks with a man's heart now and then. You'd better ship me to the hospital at Saint Louis. They can patch me up in a week probably. Only, the sooner you can get me there, the better."

"You call the foreman and tell him to get up steam on the big launch, Hallowell." Burford, very pale, took command of the situation. "Miss Hallowell, will you go and bring Sally Lou? I want her right away.

She's all kinds of good in an emergency."

Marian fled, her own heart pounding in her throat. But Sally Lou, after the first scared questions, rose to the occasion, steady and serene.

"Light the stove and make our soapstones and sand-bags piping-hot, Mammy. Heat some bouillon and put it into the thermos bottle. Ned, you and the foreman must take him down to Grafton Landing on the launch.

The _Lucy Lee_ is due to reach Grafton late this afternoon. I'll catch the _Lucy's_ captain on the long-distance telephone at the landing above Grafton, and tell him to wait at Grafton Landing till you get there with Mr. Carlisle. Then you can put him aboard the _Lucy_. She will make Saint Louis in half the time that you could make it with the launch. Besides, the _Lucy_ will mean far easier travelling for Mr.

Carlisle."

"I never thought of the _Lucy_! I'd meant to wait with him at the Landing and take the midnight train. But the steam-boat will be a far easier trip. Sally Lou, you certainly are a peach!" Young Burford looked at his wife with solemn admiration. "Go and telephone, quick.

We'll have Carlisle ready to start in an hour."

In less than an hour the launch was made ready, with cot and pillows and curtains, as like an ambulance as a launch could well be. With clumsy anxious pains Roderick and Burford lifted their chief aboard.

Marian hung behind, eager to help, yet too frightened and nervous to be of service. But Sally Lou, her yellow hair flying under her ruffly red bonnet, her baby laughing and crowing on her shoulder, popped her flushed face gayly under the awning to bid Mr. Carlisle good-by.

"If it wasn't for these babies I'd go straight along and take care of you myself, Mr. Carlisle," she cried. "But the hospital will take better care of you than I could, I reckon. And the week's vacation will do you no end of good. Besides it will set these two lazybones to work." She gave her husband a gentle shake. "Ned and Mr. Hallowell will have to depend on themselves, instead of leaving all the responsibility to you. It will be the making of them. You'll see!"

"Perhaps that is true." Carlisle's gray lips smiled. He was white with suffering, but he spoke with his unvarying kind formality. "I am leaving you gentlemen with a pretty heavy load. But--I am not apprehensive. I know that you boys will stand up to the contract, and that you will carry it on with success. Good-by, and good luck to you!"

The launch shot away down-stream. Sally Lou looked after it. Marian saw her sparkling eyes grow very grave.

"Mr. Carlisle is mighty brave, isn't he? But he will not come back to work in a week's time. No, nor in a month's time either if I know anything about it. But there's no use a-glooming, is there, Thomas Tucker! You two come up to my house and we'll have supper together and watch for Ned; for if he meets the _Lucy_ at Grafton he can bring the launch back by ten to-night."

Sally Lou was a good prophet. It was barely nine when Ned's launch whistled at the landing. Ned climbed the steps, looking tired and excited.

"Yes, we overhauled the _Lucy_, all right. Mr. Carlisle seemed much more comfortable when we put him aboard. He joked me about being so frightened and said he'd come back in a day or so as good as new.

But--I don't know how we'll manage here. With Carlisle laid up, and Marvin gone off in the sulks, for n.o.body knows how long--Well, for the next few days this contract is up to us, Hallowell. That is all there is to that. And we've got to make good. We've got to put it through."

"You certainly must make good. And it is up to us girls to help things along," said Sally Lou, briskly. "Isn't it, Marian? Yes, I'm going to call you Marian right away. It's such a saving of time compared to 'Miss Hallowell.' And the very first thing to-morrow morning we will drive over to Mrs. Chrisenberry's, and coax her into letting you boys start that lateral through her land."

Three startled faces turned to her. Three astounded voices rose.

"Coax her, indeed! On my word! When she drove Rod and me off the place this very morning!"

"Think you dare ask her to take down her barb-wire barricade and lay away her shot-gun? 'Not till doomsday!'"

"Sally Lou, are you daft? You've never laid eyes on Mrs. Chrisenberry.

You don't know what you're tackling. We'll not put that lateral through till we've dragged the whole question through the courts.

Don't waste your time in dreaming, child."

"I'm not going to dream. I'm going to act. You'll go with me, won't you, Marian? We'll take the babies and the buckboard. But, if you don't mind, we'll leave Mr. Finnegan at home. Finnegan's diplomacy is all right, only that it's a trifle demonstrative. Yes, you boys are welcome to shake your heads and look owlish. But wait and see!"

"She'll never try to face that ferocious old lady," said Rod, on the way home.

"Of course not. She's just making believe," rejoined Marian.

Little did they know Sally Lou! Marian had just finished her breakfast the next morning when the yellow buckboard, drawn by a solemn, scraggy horse, drove up to Mrs. Gates's door. On the front seat, rosy as her scarlet gown and cloak, sat Sally Lou. From the back seat beamed Mammy Easter, in her gayest bandanna, with Edward Burford, Junior, dimpled and irresistible, beside her, and Thomas Tucker bouncing and crowing in her arms.

"Climb right in, Miss Northerner! Good-by, poor Finnegan! This time we're going to try the persuasive powers of two babies as compared to those of one collie. Here we go!"

"Are we really going to Mrs. Chrisenberry's? Are you actually planning to ask her for the right of way?" queried Marian.

Sally Lou chuckled. Her round face was guileless and bland.

"Certainly not. I am going to Mrs. Chrisenberry's to buy some goose-grease."

"To buy some _goose-grease_! Horrors! What is goose-grease, pray?"

"Goose-grease is goose-grease. Didn't you ever have the croup when you were young, Miss Northerner? And didn't they roll you in warm blankets, and then bandage your poor little throat with goose-grease and camphor and red pepper?"

"An' a baked onion for your supper," added Mammy Easter. "An' a big saucer of b.u.t.terscotch, sizzlin'-hot. Dey ain't no croup what kin stand before dat!"

"Mercy, I should hope not. I never heard of anything so dreadful. You aren't going to give goose-grease to your own babies, I hope?"

Sally Lou surveyed her uproarious sons, and allowed herself a brief giggle.

"They've never had a sign of croup so far, I'm thankful to say. But one ought to be prepared. And Mrs. Chrisenberry has the finest poultry-yard in the country-side. We'll enjoy seeing that, too. Don't look so dubersome. Wait and see!"

Mrs. Chrisenberry was working in her vegetable garden as they drove up. Her queer little face was bound in a huge many-colored "nuby," her short skirts were kilted over high rubber boots. She leaned on her spade and gave the girls a nod that, as Marian told Rod later, was like a twelve-pound shot squarely across the enemy's bows.

Sally Lou merely beamed upon her.

"Wet weather for putting in your garden, isn't it?" she cried, gayly.

"I'm Mrs. Burford, Mrs. Chrisenberry. My husband is an engineer on the Breckenridge contract."

"H'm!" Mrs. Chrisenberry glared. Sally Lou chattered gayly on.

"I'm staying down at the ca.n.a.l with these two youngsters, and I want to buy some of your fine goose-grease. They've never had croup in all their born days, but it's such a cold, wet spring that it is well to be prepared for anything."

"Goose-grease!" Mrs. Chrisenberry looked at her keenly. "For those babies? Highty-tighty! Goose-grease is well enough, but hot mutton taller is better yet. I've raised two just as fine boys as them, so I know. Mutton taller an' camphire, that's sovereign."

She put down her spade and picked her way to the buckboard. Edward Junior hailed her with a shriek of welcome. Thomas Tucker floundered wildly in Mammy's grasp and clutched Mrs. Chrisenberry around the neck with a strangling squeeze.

Marian gasped. For Mrs. Chrisenberry, grim, stern little nut-cracker lady, had lifted Thomas to her stooped little shoulder and was gathering Edward Junior into a lean strong little arm. Both babies crowed with satisfaction. Thomas jerked off the ta.s.selled nuby and showered rose-leaf kisses from Mrs. Chrisenberry's tight k.n.o.b of gray hair to the tip of her dour little chin. Edward pounded her gleefully with fists and feet.

"They'll strangle her," Marian whispered, aghast.

"Pooh, she doesn't mind," Sally Lou whispered back. "You mustn't let them pull you to pieces, Mrs. Chrisenberry. They're as strong as little bear cubs."

"Guess I know that." Mrs. Chrisenberry shook Edward's fat grip loose from her tatting collar. "They're the living images of my own boys, thirty years ago. I hope your children bring you as good luck as mine have brought me. They've grown up as fine men as you'd find in a day's journey. Let me take 'em to see the hen yard. They'll like to play with the little chickens, I know."

Edward and Thomas Tucker were charmed with the hen yard. They fell upon a brood of tiny yellow b.a.l.l.s with cries of ecstasy. Only the irate pecks and squawks of the outraged hen mother prevented them from hugging the fuzzy peepers to a loving death.

"They're a pretty lively team," remarked Mrs. Chrisenberry. "Let's take 'em into the house, and I'll give them some cookies and milk. I don't know much about new-fangled ways of feeding children, but I do know that my cookies never hurt anybody yet."

She led them through her shining kitchen into a big, bright sitting-room. Again Marian halted to stare. This was not the customary chill and dreary farm-house "parlor." Instead, she saw a wide, fire-lit living-room, filled with flowering plants, home-like with its books and pictures; and at the arched bay-window a beautiful upright piano.