“In a way, that is so,” Festing agreed.  “Still, I can’t go back until I have finished this job.”

“Perhaps you had better not,” said Charnock dryly.  “I imagine you wouldn’t be easy to live with it you felt you had come home because you had failed.  You might make good resolutions, but the thing would spoil your temper all the same.  The pinch comes when you try to carry good resolutions out.”

Festing got up and threw fresh wood on the fire.  “If you have finished philosophizing, we’ll talk about something else.”

“I’m not going to talk about logs and wages,” Charnock replied.

“Very well.  You haven’t told me much about Wilkinson.  He seems a clever rascal.  Do you think we have ground for being afraid of him?”

“I don’t imagine he’d run much risk or make a sacrifice for the sake of getting his revenge; that kind of thing isn’t often done by normal people.  All the same, he doesn’t like us, and if he found he could do us an injury without much trouble, I dare say he’d seize the chance.  On the whole, it might be prudent to watch him.  Now we’ll let the matter go.”

Festing nodded, and they lounged in silence by the snapping fire.

Next morning they got to work upon the track, and on the following afternoon, when the thaw had gone far enough into the ground, Charnock went for the gravel gang.  The men came willingly, although Wilkinson and the foreman did not appear, and with the connivance of one Charnock obtained several of the company’s blast-lamps.  They worked well, and when they went away Festing was satisfied with what they had done.  He imagined that Kerr and Norton had put themselves to some inconvenience in order to let him have the gang, and for the next two or three days he redoubled his efforts.  The strain was getting unbearable, but the thaw would not last, and he must finish all the work the frost would delay while he could get the men.  When he dismissed his helpers, they parted on friendly terms; but his look was grave that evening when he made up his accounts.

The wages had been a heavy drain, and he could not meet his storekeeper’s bills unless he got his cheque.  The defective underpinning had, however, been replaced or strengthened, and he expected that Kerr would test it soon.  If the work did not pass the test, he would be ruined, and would, moreover, have involved Charnock in a serious loss.

It was about the middle of the morning when he stood with Kerr and his partner beside the mended tract.  Bright sunshine touched the hillside, leaving the gorge in shadow, and the air was clear and cold.  The snow had gone for a few hundred feet above the rails; the pines stood out sharply from the dark background, and the hollows in the glittering slopes beyond were marked by lines of soft-blue shade.  Festing thought a change was coming, and he had not finished the track too soon.

By and by a plume of smoke rose above the trees and something twinkled in an opening.  A rhythmic snorting and a rumble pierced the throb of the river, and Kerr looked up the track.