"Whatever is the matter, Yerkes? What is a sink-hole?"

Yerkes looked round.

"A sink-hole, my lady?" he said slowly--"A sink-hole, well, it's as you
may say--a muskeg."

"A _what?_"

"A place where you can't find no bottom, my lady. This one's a vixen,
she is! What she's cost the C.P.R.!"--he threw up his hands. "And
there's no contenting her--the more you give her the more she wants.
They give her ten trainloads of stuff a couple of months ago. No good! A
bit of moist weather and there she is at it again. Let an engine and
two carriages through last night--ten o'clock!"

"Gracious! Was anybody hurt? What--a kind of bog?--a quicksand?"

"Well," said Yerkes, resuming his dusting, and speaking with polite
obstinacy, "muskegs is what they call 'em in these parts. They'll have
to divert the line. I tell 'em so, scores of times. She was at this game
last year. Held me up twenty-one hours last fall."

When Yerkes was travelling he spoke in a representative capacity. He
_was_ the line.

"How many trains ahead of us are there? Yerkes?"

"Two as I know on--may be more."