“No, Joe, you misunderstand; if my face is white it’s not because I’m afraid of the lightning.  I have been hurt to-night, Joe, worse than it could ever hurt me.”

Utterly forgetful of the warring elements, Joe halted abruptly, and throwing his great arm around the slender shoulders of his companion, said fiercely, “For God’s sake, Harry, don’t talk like that; it makes me feel like going back and choking the life out of both of them.”  While he was speaking, a flash of lightning, more vivid than its fellows, shot across the prairie and revealed the two troubled figures to some of the laborers who were in the act of leaving Shuter’s store, and their hearts—­unluckily for Shuter—­hardened against him for the part he that night had played.

The deep thrill in Joe’s voice went to Harry’s heart like a balm, and he said gratefully, “You’re an awful decent fellow, Joe, and it’s too bad of me bringing my troubles into your life in this way.”

Joe’s only reply, as they again hurried along, was to hug the little arm more closely.  When they finally reached their tent Joe uttered an exclamation, for one of the flashes revealed that it was at least two feet deep in water.  Groping his way into the tent, Joe lit a candle, and holding it high above his head, looked around.  “This is hard luck,” he said to his companion, who was standing in the opening; “we’ve pitched the tent in a little hollow, and the water’s drained into it.  There’ll be no sleeping here for us to-night; we shall have to move the tent and stretchers to higher ground.”

Half an hour later the tent was pitched several acres away.  Had the lightning not died away, they would have seen that they were near two other tents of exactly the same size as their own.

It was about five o’clock when Joe awoke, and looking out of the tent saw the sun was already casting a warm glow in the east.  Seeing Harry showed no signs of waking, he slipped quietly from his stretcher, dressed, and stealing past his mate, left the tent.  Signs of life were already visible in camp.  In another hour the entire camping outfit would be loaded on the waiting flat-cars and taken to the end of the track—­which again stretched over two miles westward—­and a new camping-ground found, after which breakfast would be served and the phenomenal track-laying be again continued.

“It’s a great country,” Joe muttered, as his gaze swept across the broad expanse, “and if it hadn’t been for the trouble my little mate’s had, I should have been happy out here.”

Turning, he saw for the first time the two small tents, and at once recognized them as the ones Shuter and his daughter slept in.  While he was thinking how queer it was that above all other spots they should have chosen this to pitch their tent, Shuter came out of one of the tents, and in a loud voice called to his daughter, in the other, to get up.  Not wanting to speak to him, Joe hurried back into his own tent and began to wash.