Sloan asked no questions until they had forded the stream and were back on the road.  Then he inquired, “What’s he going to do?”

“Mend the bridge.  I told him it had to be done tonight.  Said he couldn’t.  Hadn’t any lumber.  Couldn’t think of it.  I told him to pull down the lee side of his house if necessary; said you’d give him the lumber to build an annex on it.”

“What!”

“Oh, it’s all right.  Send the bill to MacBride.  I knew your name would go down and mine wouldn’t.”

The delay had proved costly, and it was half-past seven before they reached the Manistogee hotel.

“Now,” said Bannon, “we’ll have time to rub down the mare and feed her before I’m ready to go back.”

Sloan stared at him for a moment in unfeigned amazement.  Then slowly he shook his head.  “All right, I’m no quitter.  But I will say that I’m glad you ain’t coming to Ledyard to live.”

Bannon left the supper table before Sloan had finished, and was gone nearly an hour.  “It’s all fixed up,” he said when he returned.  “I’ve cinched the wharf.”

They started back as they had come, in silence, Bannon crowding as low as possible in his ulster, dozing.  But he roused when the mare, of her own accord, left the road at the detour for the ford.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said.  “The bridge is fixed.”  So they drove straight across, the mare feeling her way cautiously over the new-laid planks.

The clouds were thinning, so that there was a little light, and Bannon leaned forward and looked about.

“How did you get hold of the message from the general manager?” asked Sloan abruptly.

“Heard it.  I can read Morse signals like print.  Used to work for the Grand Trunk.”

“What doing?”

“Boss of a wrecking gang.”  Bannon paused.  Presently he went on.

“Yes, there was two years when I slept with my boots on.  Didn’t know a quiet minute.  Never could tell what I was going to get up against.  I never saw two wrecks that were anything alike.  There was a junction about fifty miles down the road where they used to have collisions regular; but they were all different.  I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do till I was on the ground, and then I didn’t have time to.  My only order was, ‘Clear the road—­and be damn quick about it.’  What I said went.  I’ve set fire to fifty thousand dollars’ worth of mixed freight just to get it out of the way—­and they never kicked.  That ain’t the kind of life for me, though.  No, nor this ain’t, either.  I want to be quiet.  I’ve never had a chance yet, and I’ve been looking for it ever since I was twelve years old.  I’d like to get a little farm and live on it all by myself.  I’d raise garden truck, cabbages, and such, and I’d take piano lessons.”

“Is that why you quit the Grand Trunk?  So that you could take piano lessons?” Sloan laughed as he asked the question, but Bannon replied seriously:—­