“Pretty bad, little girl,” he answered, smoothing her cheek tenderly with his chilled fingers as he moved with her toward the fire, “but it might have been worse but for the way Breen handled the men.”

“And will it all have to be rebuilt?”

She was glad for Jack, but it was her father who now filled her mind.

“That I can’t tell, Puss”—­one of his pet names for her, particularly when she needed comforting—­“but it’s safe for the night, anyway.”

“And you have worked so hard—­so hard!” Her beautiful arms, bare from the elbow, were still around his neck, her cheek pressed close—­her lovely, clinging body in strong contrast to the straight, gray, forceful man in the wet storm-coat, who stood with arms about her while he caressed her head with his brown fingers.

“Well, Puss, we have one consolation—­it wasn’t our fault—­the ‘fill’ is holding splendidly although it has had a lively shaking up.  The worst was over in ten minutes, but it was pretty rough while it lasted.  I don’t think I ever saw water come so fast.  I saw you with Breen, but I couldn’t reach you then.  Look out for your dress, daughter.  I’m pretty wet.”

He released her arms from his neck and walked toward the fire, stripping off his gray mackintosh as he moved.  There he stretched his hands to the blaze sod went on:  “As I say, the ‘fill’ is safe and will stay so, for the water is going down rapidly; dropped ten feet, Breen, since you left.  My!—­but this fire feels good!  Got into something dry—­did you, Breen?  That’s right.  But I am not satisfied about the way the down-stream end of the culvert acts”—­ this also was addressed to Jack—­“I am afraid some part of the arch has caved in.  It will be bad if it has—­we shall know in the morning.  You weren’t frightened, Puss, were you?”

She did not answer.  She had heard that cheery, optimistic note in her father’s voice before; she knew how much of it was meant for her ears.  None of his disasters were ever serious, to hear daddy talk—­“only the common lot of the contracting engineer, little girl,” he would say, kissing her good-night, while he again pored over his plans, sometimes until daylight.

She crept up to him the closer and nestled her fingers inside his collar—­an old caress of hers when she was a child, then looking up into his eyes she asked with almost a throb of suffering in her voice, “Is it as bad as the coffer-dam, daddy?”

Jack looked on in silence.  He dared not add a word of comfort of his own while his Chief held first place in soothing her fears.

MacFarlane passed his hand over her forehead—­“Don’t ask me, child!  Why do you want to bother your dear head over such things, Puss?” he asked, as he stroked her hair.

“Because I must and will know.  Tell me the truth,” she demanded, lifting her head, a note of resolve in her voice.  “I can help you the better if I know it all.”  Some of the blood of one of her great-great-grandmothers, who had helped defend a log-house in Indian times, was asserting itself.  She could weep, but she could fight, too, if necessary.