The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-03

II
 that did not cease, even for an hour. Ragged, smokelike clouds hung over the valley at Thirty Mile, dragged so low by their own weight that they not only hid the up- per peaks, but shrouded the lower ridges as well. They drove by in in- terminable files of gray, making sluice- ways of every cut and drenchins con- tinua1ly the men of the construction gang, who, in spite of the chill of that downfall, still sweated at their labor. But both Steve and Fat Joe, for all that they caught each day . deeper note in the hoarse complaints of those same men-a note no less ominous than was that newer, hoarser one of the swollen river-nevertheless were duly thankful that the leaden sky had at least a tinsel lining. It might have showed.
 A month earlier it had been Steve's plan to span that mile or so of swamp and bridge the river before the cold weather set in- Nor was his altered order of campaign due in any way to the storm which had raised the river and made of the alder dotted stretch of fiat bog meadow an oozing, Quaking morass. It no longer represented mere ly positive not too alluring problem in engineering-that strip of swamp and open water. It had taken on . newer, strategic importance. And the change in Steve's plans, 50 far as the work at Thirty Mile was concerned, was as much due to the news which Fat Joe brought home with him one night toward the end of the next week as it was the result of the interview which he had held with Hardwick El- liott himself
 Joe had been a whole day absent on the north end of the line. Alone he had been over every foot of that all but completed stretch which ended at the. border of swampland, there at headquarters, troubling himself not at all over the unevenness of the road bed, satisfied entirely with the surety he gained with every inspected mile that trainload of logs or a dozen trainloads would stay on the rails when the rails were laid and the day came to set wheels rolling. But the further report he brought back with him was far less reassuring. q wonder" Joe unused aloud that night--"I wonder, now, why any man who knows anything about handlin' timber should go to work botherin' himself with skidways leadin' down to the river when he knows, as well as Harrigan should know, that it amt comin' out that way? It don't seem good sense nor logic to me, unless"-
 He stopped there and left his own opinion unfinished. Since the evening Harrigan had stepped out of the main bunk house and disappeared, black rage in his face and promise to return upon his lips, that lumberman's red head had been conspicuous only be- cause it was absent from the land scape. So far Harrignn had failed to reappear, and Fat Joe's method of ap- prising his chief of his return to the Reserve company's payroll was dis tinctly characteristic. But Steve's re- ception of the news was little moro than listless. He seemed 60 change the subject entirely.
 f ,"I don't see why 1t wouldn't be just as easy or easier," Steve replied, "to cross here on billings practically tho whole distance as it wouls be to fr anSs bridge too. And. if 0-e were to look at it in that light, then why wouldn't it be still easier to drive those piles, say. next February or March. wbiio the swamp is still crusted over and hard? It would afforc us some sort of footing to work OF then other than black ooze and lilypads. Wouldn'i it seem so to you?"
 Wed still have that track north of here to lay" Fat Joe advised, when we work in from the south with stcc;." Surely" Steve admitted. "Of course. But wouldn't that be better bet than to stand to see our embankment and bridge"-
 He broke off there, just as Joe had hesitated a moment before. The un- dercurrent of meaning for which the latter's ears were waiting came to the surface, however, when Steve began again.
 tTo Be Cnutinued.D