"Strange!" muttered the Policeman, slowly replacing the glasses.
CHAPTER XIV
THE FIGHT IN THE SHACK
Big Jim Torrance was thrilling with incipient twinges of a great triumph, though the superstitions of his kind struggled against their display. For two weeks his eager, hopeful eyes had been fixed on those twin lines of steel above the trestle, and not an atom of bend could he detect.
What if at last he had choked that insatiable maw on the river bottom!
What if his great task was nearing its end!
A timetable, against his inclination, began to form in his mind. Another week of foraging for those omniverous jaws, of bolstering up the structure of the trestle. If by that time its appetite had not revived, only the new foundations and the light task of filling in. Perhaps then he would relieve himself of half his staff; he was suddenly aware of the strain of such a lawless crew. Unexpectedly and without precedent he found himself anticipating the six months' winter rest.
His excited joy had been assuming peculiar expression. Sitting down for more than a few minutes at a time became a strain. He insisted on helping Tressa with the housework, and his interest in the books they were reading was so perfunctory that Conrad and Tressa went on to the end without bothering about his attention. Not infrequently he strolled down to the river bottom and paced up and down beneath the trestle. Again he would walk out on the sleepers above the quicksands and glory in the solidity beneath his feet.
One evening when Conrad had gone to the Police barracks to make a report on recent trifling but significant occurrences, and to complete plans for a more systematic protection of the trestle now that it was nearing completion, Torrance moved his chair to the open doorway and sat dreaming.
"You haven't locked the stable yet," Tressa reminded him, breaking a long silence.
He laughed recklessly. "What's the need? We'll be away in a month.
Big Chief gets 'em then. Funny if they were stolen. You bet the
Indian would find them."