"Of all the notions!" Rod looked completely puzzled. Yet a warm little gratified smile brightened his tired face. Again he felt the heart-warming satisfaction that he had felt on the day he had come home, fagged and blue, to find that Marian had sorted all his accounts and cleared up his reports for him. It was wonderfully pleasant to find that his sister could show such real comradeship in his work.
"Of course you shall go with me if you wish, dear. Hop in. Careful!"
"Let me steer, Rod."
"Think you can see all right?"
"With this big search-light? I should hope so. Lie down on the cushions and rest for two minutes. I'll run very carefully."
"Good enough." Rod stretched his weary bones on the seat. At the end of the six-mile run he sat up, with a shamed grin.
"Lazy sinner I am, I dropped off the minute I struck those cushions. My, that snooze makes one thirsty for more! Put the launch inshore, Sis. Hello there, boys! Is that Dredge A crew? Why, how did you swing the dredge downstream so quickly?"
"We had steam up, so we dropped down the lateral the minute we got word of the cave-in," answered the dredge foreman. "It was Mister Jim Conover who happened by and saw the landslip, sir. He came a-gallopin' over with his horse all lather, and brought us the news, not fifteen minutes after it happened. Then he called his own hired men and a crowd of neighbors, and they all set to to shore up the bank, above and below the break, with sand-bags and brush. They're workin' at it now, sir, lickety-cut." He pointed up the lateral to a dim glow of torch-light. "Shovellin' away like beavers they are, sir. There won't be another slump in that margin, you can depend on that. They've saved you and the company two days' work and five hundred dollars clear in damages alone, I'm thinkin'."
"Five hundred damages? It would have been nearer a thousand if they hadn't stopped that slide on the double-quick." Roderick sat staring at the hurrying figures in the dull glow of smoky light. He could hardly grasp this amazing stroke of fortune. "But how—why—I never heard of such a royal piece of kindness!"
"It's all Conover's doing. He said you folks had done mighty neighborly by him, and that he wanted to show his appreciation."