“This is ridiculous.  You can’t stop me.”

“Maybe I can’t and maybe I can, I’m under orders to rush this work and I don’t intend to knock off to please you.  I’ve planted shots at various places along our right-of-way and I’ll set ’em off when it suits me.  If you’re so anxious to go up-river, why don’t you cross over to the moraine?  There’s a much better trail on that side.  You’ll find better walking a few miles farther up, and you’ll run no danger of being hurt.”

“I intend to run a survey along this hillside.”

“There isn’t room; we beat you to it.”

“The law provides—­”

“Law?  Jove!  I’d forgotten there is such a thing.  Why don’t you go to law and settle the question that way?  We’ll have our track laid by the time you get action, and I’m sure Mr. O’Neil wouldn’t place any obstacles in the way of your free passage back and forth.  He’s awfully obliging about such things.”

Gordon ground his fine, white, even teeth.  “Don’t you understand that I’m entitled to a right-of-way through here under the law of common user?” he asked, with what patience he could command.

“If you’re trying to get a legal opinion on the matter why don’t you see a lawyer?  I’m not a lawyer, neither am I a public speaker nor a piano-tuner, nor anything like that—­I’m an engineer.”

“Don’t get funny.  I can’t send my men in here if you continue blasting.”

“So it seems to me, but you appear to be hell bent on trying it.”

Dan was enjoying himself and he deliberately added to the other’s anger by inquiring, as if in the blinding light of a new idea: 

“Why don’t you bridge over and go up the other side?” He pointed to the forbidding, broken country which faced them across the rapids.

Gordon snorted.  “How long do you intend to maintain this preposterous attitude?” he asked.

“As long as the powder lasts—­and there’s a good deal of it.”

The promoter chewed his lip for a moment in perplexity, then said with a geniality he was far from feeling: 

“Appleton, you’re all right!  I admire your loyalty, even though it happens to be for a mistaken cause.  I always liked you.  I admire loyalty—­It’s something I need in my business.  What I need I pay for, and I pay well.”

“So your man Linn told us.”

“I never really discharged you.  In fact, I intended to re-employ you, for I need you badly.  You can name your own salary and go to work any time.”

“In other words, you mean you’ll pay me well to let you through.”

“Fix your own price and I’ll double it.”

“Will you come with me up this trail a little way?” Dan inquired.

“Certainly.”

“There’s a spot where I’d like to have you stand.  I’ll save you the trouble of walking back to your men—­you’ll beat the echo.”

There was a pause while Gordon digested this.  “Better think it over,” he said at length.  “I’ll never let O’Neil build his road, not if it breaks me, and you’re merely laying yourself open to arrest by threatening me.”