"White, get back on the job," directed the speaker, who Wilson later learned was the fire-boss.

"You brought him down with you," he added, to the boy.

The man spoken to began creeping up the water-covered slope dragging a pick, and Wilson turned to look about him. The eleven men in the party, not including the man on the slope, were crowded together on the level floor of what evidently was the lower fault of the lead. From the darkness beyond came the sound of water trickling to a lower level.

"Are all here, and no one hurt?" he asked.

"Hoover and Young, and everybody, and not one scratched," responded the fire-boss. "You were the one nearest hurt.

"You were a mighty plucky youngster," he added, "to come through that water up there."

Wilson interrupted a chorus of hearty a.s.sent. "What happened to Hoover and Young at the pipe?" he inquired. "That mystified everybody outside."

"They both caught it coming down, but Hoover lost his hold trying to change hands for tapping, and Young dropped the knife he was knocking with, and slipped fishing for it," the fire-boss explained.

Meantime at the entrance to the mine, a half hour having pa.s.sed without a knocking on the pipe to announce the arrival inside of the young operator, anxiety began to be felt for his safety also. When another half hour had pa.s.sed, and there was still no response to frequent tappings of inquiry, the mine-boss, Bartlett, began to stride up and down before the blocked entrance. "I shouldn't have allowed him to go in," he muttered repeatedly. "He was only a boy."

When at length Muskoka Jones reappeared on the scene, and with him the operator from Ledges, Bartlett met them with a gloomy face. At that very moment, however, there was a shout from the men gathered about the pumping-pipe. "He's knocking!" cried a voice.

Bartlett, Muskoka and the Ledges operator went forward on the run. The latter dropped to his knees and placed his ear to the pipe. At the quick smile of comprehension which came into his face a great cheer went up. It was immediately stilled by a gesture from the operator, and in tense silence he caught up a stone, tapped back a signal, then read aloud Wilson's strangely telegraphed words of the safety of the men below, their situation, and the means to be taken to reach them.

And just at sunset the bedraggled but joyful, cheering party of rescuers and rescued emerged from the entrance--Wilson to a reception he will remember as long as he lives.

The most important result of Wilson's courage and resourcefulness, however, was an interview Alex Ward had that evening at Exeter with the division superintendent. Following a recital of Wilson's feat at the mine, Alex added: "You said last week, Mr. Cameron, that I might suggest a third operator for the Yellow Creek construction 'advance guard' of operators. I'd like to suggest Jennings, sir."

"He is appointed, then," said the superintendent. "Go and tell him yourself."

XVIII

WITH THE CONSTRUCTION TRAIN

On a newly-made siding parallel to the main-line tracks, and in the center of a rolling vista of yellow-brown prairie, stood a trampish-looking train of weather-beaten pa.s.senger coaches and box-cars. In the sides of the latter small windows had been cut, and from the roofs projected chimneys.

North of the train, to a din of clanking, pounding and shoveling, a throng of men were laying ties and rails, driving spikes and tightening bolts, in the construction of further short stretches of track.

It was the Yellow Creek branch "boarding" and construction train, and the laying of the sidings of the newly-created Yellow Creek Junction was the first step in the race of the Middle Western and the K. & Z., some miles below the southern horizon, for the just-discernible break to the southwest in the blue line of the Dog Rib Mountains--the coveted entrance to the new gold fields in the valley beyond.

And here, the first of the construction operators sent forward, Alex had been two days established in the "telegraph-car."

As he had antic.i.p.ated, Alex was enjoying the experience hugely. It was every bit as good as camping out, he had declared over the wire to Jack--having for an office a table at one end of the old freight-car, sleeping in a shelf-like bunk at the other end, and eating in the rough-and-ready diner with the inspectors, foremen, time-keepers and clerks who shared the telegraph-car with him. As well, the work going on about him was a constant source of interest during Alex's spare moments.

On this, the second day, Alex had been particularly interested in the newly-arrived track-laying machine--which did not actually lay track at all, but by means of roller-bottomed chutes fed out a stream of rails and ties to the men ahead of it. After supper, the wire being silent, Alex made his way amid several trains of track-material already filling completed sidings, for a closer view of the big machine.

There proved to be less to see than he had expected; and having climbed aboard the pilot-car and examined the engine, Alex ascended the tower from which a brakeman controlled the movements of the train.

On his right lay a string of flats piled high with timbers for bridges and culverts. Glancing along them, Alex was surprised to see a man's head cautiously emerge from an opening in the lumber on one of the cars, and quickly disappear on discovering him. A moment after he had a fleeting glimpse of the intruder running low along the side of the train toward the rear.

"Only a hobo," Alex decided on second thought. For numbers of tramps had come through on the material-trains. And presently Alex returned to the telegraph-car.

Shortly after midnight the young operator was awakened by someone running through the car and shouting for Construction Superintendent Finnan. When he caught the word "Fire!" he scrambled into his clothes and leaped to the floor, and out.

Over the tops of the cars in the direction of the track-machine was a dancing glare.

In alarm Alex joined the stream of men dropping to the ground all along the boarding-cars. Dodging through the intervening trains, he brought up with an expression of relief beside, not the track-machine, but a car of bridge material.

Fanned by a brisk wind, flames were spouting from amid the timbers at several points. Already men were pitching the burning beams over the side, however; and finding a shovel, Alex joined those who were smothering them with sand.

"Tramps, sure!" Alex heard another of the shovelers remark angrily.

Immediately then he recalled the man he had seen from the track-machine tower, and pausing in his work, he counted the cars back.

It was the same car. Yes; undoubtedly the fire was the careless work of the tramp he had seen running away.

The force of fire fighters was rapidly augmented, and soon, despite the fresh breeze, the last of the burning beams were smothered, and all danger of a general conflagration was past.

It was as Alex at last headed back for the boarding-train that a theory other than the tramp theory of the origin of the fire occurred to him. It came from a sudden recollection of Division Superintendent Cameron's prediction of interference from the K. & Z. "Could that be the real explanation?" he asked himself with some excitement.

The first streak of dawn found Alex again at the scene of the fire, bent on proving or disproving the theory of incendiarism. Climbing aboard the scorched car, he dropped to his knees and began carefully brushing aside the sand with which the burning floor had been covered.

A few minutes' search produced the burned ends of shavings!

"So!--the 'fight' is on!" observed Alex to himself gravely.

With several of the tell-tale fragments in his pocket Alex was about to leap to the ground when Construction Superintendent Finnan appeared.

"Good morning, my lad. You beat me here, eh?" he said genially. "Well, what do you make of it?"

Alex sprang down beside him, and produced the charred pine whittlings. "I found these on the bottom of the car, sir. They don't seem to support the careless tramp theory, do they?" Continuing, Alex then told of the man he had seen there the evening before. "Do you think it was the work of the K. & Z., sir?" he concluded.

The superintendent's lips were drawn tight. "Yes; I believe it was. Could you identify the man?"

"I am afraid not, sir. It was getting dusk, and he was five or six car-lengths from me, and running stooped over.

"Perhaps we could follow his footsteps down the side of the train?" Alex suggested.

"Good idea! Lead ahead. There has been a good deal of tramping about, but we may pick them out."

Proceeding to the point several cars distant at which he had seen the stranger on the ground, Alex moved on slowly, carefully inspecting the freshly turned but considerably trampled earth, the superintendent following him.

A car-length beyond, the latter suddenly paused, retraced his steps a few feet, and pointing out three succeeding impressions, exclaimed, "I think we have him, Ward! See? A long step! He was running on his toes."

Aided by the known length of the stride, they continued, following the footprints with comparative ease. Pa.s.sing the second car from the end, they found the steps shorten, then change to a walk. "Probably turned in between this and the last car," the superintendent observed.

"Yes; here they go," announced Alex, halting at the opening between the two flats. "He stood for a moment, then went on through."

Alex and the superintendent followed, and continued toward the rear of the last car. Half way Alex halted, and with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n stooped and picked up something white. "A small shaving, sir!"

The official took it. "That decides the matter," he said. "Probably it was sticking to his clothes."