"It will do for me, but there is no need of your tramping when you can
just as well ride."

But now that side of Mr. Peter Biggin which endears him and his kind
to every man who has ever shared his lonely round-ups, or broken bread
with him in his comfortless shack, came uppermost.

"What do you take me fer?" was the way it vocalized itself; but there
was more than a formal oath of loyal allegiance in the curt question.

"For a man and a brother," said Winton heartily; and they set out
together to waylay the outgoing train at some point beyond the danger
limit.

It was accomplished without further mishap, and the short winter day
was darkening to twilight when the train came in sight and the
engineer slowed to their signal. They climbed aboard, and when they
had found a seat in the smoker the chief of construction spoke to the
ex-cowboy as to a friend.

"I hope Adams has knocked out a good day's work for us," he said.

"Your pardner with the store hat and the stinkin' cigaroots?--he's all
right," said Biggin; and it so chanced that at the precise moment of
the saying the subject of it was standing with the foreman of
track-layers at a gap in the new line just beyond and above the
Rosemary's siding at Argentine, his day's work ended, and his men
loaded on the flats for the run down to camp over the lately-laid
rails of the lateral loop.