As they toiled up the slope to the trestle Torrance broke a long silence.
"In your prayers to-night, Tressa, you might put in a word for a mysterious stranger with an eye like an eagle. I think we're going to need him a lot before this job's finished."
CHAPTER VII
CONRAD FLASHES A GUN
A whistle sounded down the line, a short nervous blast twice repeated. An instant shrieking of handbrakes, and the rumbling train of loaded flat-cars slowed down toward the trestle.
Torrance lumbered up from the supper table to watch. He was hoping that by some slip of the levers up in Murphy's cab the rock-laden cars would glide out over the trestle and give it a real test. The trains that crossed carrying supplies to construction further west were comparatively light, because of just such tender spots on the line; and they never stopped until they reached the other side. And always they sent back the taunting whistle of engineers breathing again after the perils of the "softest" place on the line.
Murphy, the engineer of his ballast train, persistently refused to expose one little car to "the crazy conthraption ye have the nerve to call a threstle. Sure I'd as lave tie down me gauge and sit on the biler as put a foot on that skinny doodle." And Murphy never made a mistake with his levers.
As Torrance watched, the end car slowly glided back toward the trestle and, to the sharply extended arms of an overalled brakesman, came to a standstill with a few inches of the truck overhanging the gossamer structure.
Far up the track the engine puffed and panted. Presently a bewhiskered little old Irishman climbed from it and came ploughing down beside the grade.
"Late to-night, Murphy," said Torrance severely. "What's the row?"