"Down out of that, Morty!" he cried. "It's one chance in a thousand.
Pass the word to the men; I'll be with you in a second." And when
Adams was rousing the track force with the bawling shout of
"_Ev-erybody_!" Winton looked up into the brown eyes.

"My debt to you was already very great: I owe you more now," he said.

But she gave him his quittance in a whiplike retort.

"And you will stand here talking about it when every moment is
precious? Go!" she commanded; and he went.

So now we are to conceive the maddest activity leaping into being in
full view of the watchers at the windows of the private car. Winton's
chilled and sodden army, welcoming any battle-cry of action, flew to
the work with a will. In a twinkling the corded piles of cross-ties
had melted to reappear in cobhouse balks bridging an angle from the
Utah embankment to that of the spur track in the rear of the
blockading Rosemary. In briefest time the hammermen were spiking the
rails on the rough-and-ready trestle, and the Italians were bringing
up the crossing-frogs.

But the Rajah, astute colonel of industry, had not left himself
defenseless. On the contrary, he had provided for this precise
contingency by leaving McGrath's fireman in mechanical command on the
Rosemary. If Winton should attempt to build around the private car,
the fireman was to wait till the critical moment: then he was to
lessen the pressure on the automatic air-brakes and let the car drop
back down the grade just far enough to block the new crossing.