"Getting too chilly for you out here? Want to go in?" asked the
Reverend Billy, when the scenic enthusiasm began to outwear itself.

"No; but I am tired of the sentry-go part of it--ten steps and a
turn," she confessed. "Can't we walk on the track a little way?"

Calvert saw no reason why they might not, and accordingly helped her
over to the snow-encrusted path between the rails.

"We can trot down and have a look at their construction camp, if you
like," he suggested, and thitherward they went.

There was not much to see, after all, as the Reverend Billy remarked
when they had reached a coign of vantage below the curve. A string of
use-worn bunk cars; a "dinkey" caboose serving as the home on wheels
of the chief of construction and his assistant; a crooked siding with
a gang of dark-skinned laborers at work unloading a car of steel.
These in the immediate foreground; and a little way apart, perched
high enough on the steep slope of the mountain side to be out of the
camp turmoil, a small structure, half plank and half canvas--to wit,
the end-of-track telegraph office.

It was Virginia who first marked the boxed-up tent standing on the
slope.

"What do you suppose that little house-tent is for?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Calvert. Then he saw the wires and ventured a
guess which hit the mark.