"What on earth has that girl said or done to the men to fetch a cheer from them!" ejaculated Will Hallam.
"Reckon Little Missie's jest done bewitched 'em," responded Bob, as he poured batter into his pans.
A moment later Barbara, with a face that had not yet relaxed its look of intense earnestness, returned to the fire, and resumed her work over the frying pans.
"Thank you, Mr. Duncan," was all she said in recognition of his service as a maker of griddle cakes. But she added:
"The men will stick to work, now, I think—or most of them, at any rate. Perhaps you and Mr. Temple can do something to shorten it—to lessen the amount."
Then, turning to Bob, she issued her orders:
"Bring the hog, Bob, as quickly as you can. There's barely time to roast it, before noon."
The men had nearly all had their breakfasts now, so that the making of griddle cakes had about ceased. Hallam, Duncan, and the young engineer, Temple, taking new courage from Barbara's report concerning the disposition of the men, were going about among the gangs, wading knee deep in water and mud, and giving such directions as were needed.
Duncan, especially, was rendering service. As an old soldier, who had had varied experience in the hurried construction of earthworks under difficulties, he was able in many ways to hasten the present work. One thing he hit upon which went far to make success possible. That end of the crib which reached and crossed the county line offered a cavernous space to be filled in. It was thickly surrounded by trees, and Duncan ordered all these felled, directing the chopping so that the trunks and branches should fall into the crib. Then setting men to chop off such of the branches as protruded above the proposed embankment level, and let them fall into the unoccupied spaces, he presently had that part of the crib loosely filled in with a tangled mass of timber and tree tops.
Gangs of men were meanwhile pushing cars along the temporary track, and dumping their loads of earth among the felled trees. Duncan, with a small gang, was extending these temporary tracks along the crib as fast as the earth dumped in provided a sufficient bed.