"Oh, I understand! The Father wants to make sure of his people, and he is quite right. You natives haven't observed the law very carefully."
"He say Indian woman stop with white man, she never see Jesus' House no more. She go to hell sure, and baby go too. You s'pose that's true?"
"I dare say it is, in a way."
"By God! That's tough on little baby!" exclaimed Constantine, fervently.
All that night Boyd stayed at his post, while the cavernous building shuddered and hissed to the straining toil of the machines and the gasping breath of the furnaces. As the darkness gathered, he had gone out upon the dock to look regretfully toward the twinkling lights on The Grande Dame, then turned doggedly back to his labors. Another load had just arrived from the trap; already the plant, untried by the stress of a steady run, was clogged and working far below capacity. He would have sent Mildred word, but he had not a single man to spare.
At ten o'clock the next morning he staggered into his quarters, more dead than alive. In his heart was a great thankfulness that Big George had not found him wanting. The last defective machine was mended, the last weakness strengthened, and the plant had reached its fullest stride. The fish might come now in any quantity; the rest was but a matter of coal and iron and human endurance. Meanwhile he would sleep.
He met "Fingerless" Fraser emerging, decked royally in all the splendor of new clothes and spotless linen.
"Where are you going?" Boyd asked him.
"I'm going out into society."
"Clyde is taking you to the yacht, eh?"