“Take the risk,” said Charnock with a laugh.  “There’s not much fun in playing for safety, and you don’t get far that way, while when you try to foresee things you generally see them wrong.  But let’s be practical!  As soon as the ground is soft enough we’ll ask leave to hire half the gravel gang.  That will make friends of the opposition and won’t put up our wages bill.  If you double your helpers, you halve the working hours.”

“Obviously.  But you have to pay the larger number all at once.  Where’s the money coming from?”

“From the head contractor.  We’ll try to make Norton sign for an interim payment.  Let’s go and see him.”

Festing was doubtful, but they found Norton, the contractor’s engineer, more compliant than he hoped.

“I suppose you are entitled to ask for a sum on account, but I’d take some responsibility in allowing the demand,” he said.  “Why did you come to me now?”

“We want to be just,” Charnock answered modestly.  “At present, there’s no prospect of our finishing the work we ask the money for.”

“It doesn’t go much beyond a prospect yet,” Norton rejoined.  “However, I’ll help you if I can, and will see what Kerr thinks.  He’s the man we have both to satisfy in the end.”

They went to work up the hill in the melting snow, and soon their clothes were dripping and their long boots soaked.  At first, the logs vanished in the drifts through which they tried to roll them, and the horses slipped and floundered in the slush, but this flowed away and left a harder layer that was presently beaten firm.  The surface turned black and compressed into ice, and before long rows of heavy logs plunged down the skids.  Every moment must be turned to good account, and Festing stopped and went down reluctantly when Kerr sent for him.

“I’ve seen Norton and he thinks we ought to help you out,” Kerr remarked.  “Though he argues from single instances, his judgment’s often good, and he seems convinced you can be trusted because you saved a skip of his.  Of course, I had my opinion; but as he represents the contractor you are working for, I couldn’t urge him.”

“Thanks!” said Festing.  “I wish I’d brought Charnock; he’d deal with this better.”

Kerr laughed.  “Your partner has some talents and seems to have made Norton and my storekeepers his friends.  If he hadn’t, there might have been trouble about certain irregularities.  However, you can have the gravel gang if I’m forced to lay the boys off, and as soon as we can run the train over the repaired track you’ll get your cheque.”

Festing went away, feeling satisfied, but not without some anxiety.  He could not urge Norton to go farther than his employer would approve, and the payment agreed upon was small.  Besides, if the frost returned before he had made the track secure, he would have spent enough money in extra wages to prevent his going on, and should this happen it might be difficult to obtain payment for other work already completed.  He would be at the mercy of Norton’s employer, who might contend that by throwing up his contract he had forfeited his claim.  It was obvious that he must make the utmost use of every hour of open weather, and for the rest of the day he worked with a stubborn energy that conquered fatigue.