“Hit’s a letter for you-all from Mr. Stamford at the dee-po,” said the boy.  “He allowed maybe you-all’d gimme a nickel for bringin’ hit.”

The coin was found and passed, and the small boy was whooping and yelling for Helgerson to come and let him through the gates when Tom tore the envelope across and read the telegram.  It was from the Indiana city, and it was signed by the chairman of the Board of Public Works.

“Proposals for water-pipe have been reopened, and your bid is accepted.  Wire how soon you can begin to ship eighteen-inch mains,” was what it said.  Tom handed it to his father and stepped quickly to the telephone.  There was a little delay in getting the ear of the president of the Iron City National at South Tredegar, and the bounding, pulsing blood of impatience made it seem interminable.

“Is that you, Mr. Henniker?  This is Gordon at the Chiawassee plant, Gordonia.  We have secured that Indiana contract I was telling you about, and I’ll be in to see you on the ten o’clock train.  Will you save five minutes for me?  Thank you.  Good-by.”

Tom hung the ear-piece on its hook and turned to face his father.

“Have you surrounded it?” he laughed, with a little quaver of excitement in his voice, which he had been careful to master in the announcement to the bank president.  “We live, pappy; we live and win!  Get word to the men to come up here at three o’clock for their pay.  Tell them we blow in again to-morrow, and they can all come back to work and no questions asked.  Can you stay on your feet long enough to do all that?”

Caleb was nodding gravely; yet bewilderment was still in the saddle.

“But the money for the pay-rolls, son—­this is only an order to go to work,” he said, fingering the telegram doubtfully.

Tom laughed joyously.

“If I can’t make Mr. Henniker believe that he can afford to carry us a while longer on the strength of that bit of yellow paper, I’ll rob his bank.  You get the men together by three o’clock, and I’ll be here with the money.  If I’m not, it will be because somebody has sandbagged me between the bank and the train.”

Caleb was still wrestling with the incredible thing, but light was breaking in on him slowly.

“Hold on, son,” he said, and the old-time smile was wrinkling at the corners of his eyes; “how much did you allow to make out o’ this job?  I disremember what you said when you talked about it before.”

Tom checked off the items on his fingers.

“Enough to put us through the winter; enough to stand us on our feet independent of Duxbury Farley and his son; enough to let us pay Major Dabney the back royalties on the coal.  More than this, it’s going to use up iron—­hundreds of tons of it.  We’ll buy out of our own yards, and the men shall have the back-pay dividends.”

The general manager had taken his burned-out corn-cob pipe from his pocket and was looking at it speculatively.