"What?" he screamed his angry surprise. "Why, hell! Wasn't it you that tol' me it wouldn't carry a grade?"
"I said it wouldn't carry yours."
His quiet assurance gave the contractor pause, while engineer and surveyor looked their surprise. "Going to drive piles down to China?" The contractor grew hysterically sarcastic. "You'll need a permit from Li Hung Chang. What do you know about grades, anyway? I was building this railroad while you was wearing long clothes."
"Likely." Carter's easy drawl set the others a-grin and caused Dorothy to hide her smile in her handkerchief. "But you ain't out of yours yet. A yearling baby wouldn't try to stack rock on top of mud. But that isn't the question. D' you allow to finish the contract?"
"Think I'm a fool?" the man rasped.
"'Tain't always polite to state one's thoughts. But—do you?" And when the other tendered a surly negative, he turned to the engineer. "You hear, sir? And now I file my bid."
The chief, however, looked his doubt. As yet engineering science offered no solution for the muskeg problem, and this was not the first grade he had seen sacrificed to a theory. "Are you serious?"
"As a Methodist sermon," Carter answered his grave question. Then, drawing him aside, he pulled a paper from his pocket—an estimate for the work. It was dated two weeks back, prevision that caused the chief to grimly remark: "Pretty much like measuring a living man for his coffin, wasn't it? But look here, Carter! I'd hate to see you go broke on this hole. I doubt—and your figure is far too low. What's your plan?"
"I'm going to make a sawdust fill with waste from the Portage Mills."
Whistling, the chief looked his admiration, then grinned, the idea was so ludicrous in its simplicity. For, all said, the problem resolved itself into terms of specific gravity—iron sinks and wood floats in water; and the muskeg which swallowed clay would easily carry a sawdust bank. Moreover, the idea was thoroughly practicable. Situated five miles from Winnipeg, the Portage Mills were the largest in the province and their owners would willingly part with the refuse that cumbered their yards.