trotted securely over a trestle, and nodded to his chief.

"All but," said he, with a smile.

"I've been thinking about it," the senior answered. "Not half a
bad job for two men, is it?"

"One-and a half. Gad, what a Cooper's Hill cub I was when I came
on the works!" Hitchcock felt very old in the crowded experiences
of the past three years, that had taught him power and responsibility.


"You were rather a colt," said Findlayson. "I wonder how you'll
like going back to office-work when this job's over."

"I shall hate it!" said the young man, and as he went on his eye
followed Findlayson's, and he muttered, "Isn't it damned good?"

"I think we'll go up the service together," Findlayson said to
himself. "You're too good a youngster to waste on another man.
Cub thou wart; assistant thou art. Personal assistant, and at
Simla, thou shalt be, if any credit comes to me out of the
business!"

Indeed; the burden of the work had fallen altogether on Findlayson
and his assistant, the young man whom he had chosen because of his
rawness to break to his own needs. There were labour contractors
by the half-hundred - fitters and riveters, European, borrowed from
the railway workshops, with, perhaps, twenty white and half-caste
subordinates to direct, under direction, the bevies of workmen - but