Turning to bring another area of soaked clothing next to the fire, his face came under strong light. These seven months of thought and calculation had left their mark upon it—thinned and refined its lines, tooled the features into an almost intellectual cast. His mouth, perhaps, evidenced the greatest change, showing less humor, because, perhaps, self-repression and the habit of command had drawn the lips in tighter lines. Deeper set, his eyes seemed darker, while a straight look into their depths revealed an underlying sadness. Sternness and sadness, indeed, governed the face, without, however, banishing a certain grave courtesy that found expression in pleasant thanks when, presently, the cook brought them a steaming jug of coffee. Lastly, determination stamped it so positively that only its lively intelligence saved it from obstinacy. One glance explained Bender's answer to Jenny: "He's stiffer'n all hell!"—his attitude to Helen. In him will dominated the emotions. Summed, the face, with its power, dogged resolution, imperturbable confidence, mirrored his past struggles, gave earnest for his future battles.
A hint of these last inhered in a remark that Bender slid in between two gulps of coffee. "They're saying as the C.P. will never let you cross their tracks?"
Carter smiled. "Yes? Who's saying it?"
"Oh, everybody. An' the Winnipeg paper said yesterday as 'Old Brass-Bowels'"—he gave the traffic manager his sobriquet—"will enjoin you an' carry the case through the Dominion courts to the British privy council. The newspaper sharp allows that would take about two years, during which the monopoly would either buy out or bust your crowd by building a competing line."
This time Carter laughed heartily, the confident laugh of one sure of himself. "So that's what the paper said? Well, well, well! That scribe person must be something of a psychic. What's that? Oh, a fellow who tells you a whole lot of things he don't know himself. Now, listen." (In view of what occurred six months later, his words are worth remembering.)
"Courts or no courts, privy council to the contrary, we'll run trains across 'Brass-Bowel's' tracks before next freeze-up."
"Hope you do," Bender grinned. "But the old man ain't so very slow."
They talked more of construction—tools, supplies, engineering difficulties, the hundred problems inherent in railroad-building. Midnight still found them by the fire, that twinkled, a lone red star, under the enormous vault of night.
But, though interesting and important, in that the success of the enterprise involved the economic freedom of a province, the conversation—with one exception—is not germane to this story, which goes on from the moment that, two days later, a Pengelly boy carried the news of Carter's departure to Helen at school.
The exception was delivered by the mouth of Bender, as he rose, stretching with a mighty yawn, to go to his tent. "Of course it's none of my damn business, but do you allow to call at the school as you go down to-morrow?"