During each hour Glover was over every foot of the work, and inspecting

the track building. If a track boss couldn't understand what he wanted

the engineer could take a pick or a bar and give the man an object

lesson. He patrolled the cañon walls, the roadmasters behind him, with

so good an eye for loose bowlders, and fragments such as could be moved

readily with a gad, that his assistants before a second round had

spotted every handy chunk of rock within fifty feet of the water. He

put his spirit into the men and they gave their work the enthusiasm of

soldiers. But closest of all Glover watched the preparations for the

blast on the Cat's Paw.

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Morris Blood in the meantime was sweeping the division for stone,

ballast, granite, gravel, anything that would serve to dump on Glover's

rock after the blast, and the two men were conferring on the track

about the supplies when a messenger appeared with word for Glover that

Mr. Brock's party were coming down the cañon.

When Glover intercepted the visitors they had already been guided to

the granite bench where his headquarters were fixed. With Mr. Brock

had come the young men, Miss Donner, and Mrs. Whitney. Mrs. Whitney

signalized her arrival by sitting down on a chest of dynamite--having

intimidated the modest headquarters custodian by asking for a chair so

imperiously that he was glad to walk away at her suggestion that he

hunt one up--though there was not a chair within several miles. It had

been no part of Glover's plan to receive his guests at that point, and

his first efforts after the greetings were to coax them away from the

interest they expressed in the equipment of an emergency headquarters,

and get them back to where the track crossed the river. But when the

young people learned that the blue-eyed boy at the little table on the

rock could send a telegram or a cablegram for them to any part of the

world, each insisted on putting a message through for the fun of the

thing, and even Mrs. Whitney could hardly be coaxed from the

illimitable possibilities just under her.

With a feeling of relief he got them away from the giant powder which

Ed Smith's men were still bringing in, and across the river to the

ledge that commanded the whole scene, and was safely removed from its

activities.

Glover took ten minutes to point out to the president of the system the

difficulties that would always confront the operating department in the

cañon. He charted clearly for Mr. Brock the whole situation, with the

hope that when certain very heavy estimates went before the directors

one man at least would understand the necessity for them. Mr. Brock

was a good questioner, and his interest turned constantly from the

general observations offered by Glover to the work immediately in hand,

which the engineer had no mind to exploit. The young people, however,

were determined to see the blast, and it was only by strongly advising

an early dinner and promising that they should have due notice of the

blast that Glover got rid of his visitors at all.




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