“Right!” O’Neil smiled cheerfully.  “The life of the S. R. & N. depends upon it.  I’d give ten thousand dollars for your right ankle.”

“You can have it for nothing, Chief.  I’d amputate the whole leg and present it to you,” Dan declared earnestly.

Murray took his hand in a hearty grip.  “Perhaps I’ll be able to serve you some time,” he said, simply.  “Anyhow, I’ll look out for the chance.  Now spend the evening with the girls, and leave in the morning.  I’ll be down as soon as I can travel, to watch the fight from the side-lines.”  O’Neil’s voice was level, but his teeth were shut and his fingers were clenched with rage at his disability.

Dan hurried away highly elated, but when he told Eliza of the part he had undertaken she stormed indignantly.

“Why, the brute!  He has no right to send you into danger.  This isn’t war.”

“Sis, dear, it’s my chance.  He can’t stand, and he daren’t risk his right-hand men.”

“So he sacrifices you!  I won’t permit it.  Your life and safety are worth more than all his dollars.  Let his old railroad go to smash!”

“Wait!  More than my safety depends on this.  He said he’d wait for a chance to pay me back.  If I do this he’ll owe me more than any man on the job, and when he learns that I love Natalie—­”

“Dan!” exclaimed his sister.

“Oh, he’ll make good!”

“Why, you’re worse than he!  The idea of suggesting such a thing!”

“Don’t preach!  I’ve had nothing to do lately but think of her; she’s always in my mind.  The loneliness up here has made me feel more than ever that I can’t exist without her.  The river whispers her name; her face looks at me from the campfire; the wind brings me her messages—­”

“Fiddlesticks!  She saves her messages for him.  When a man reaches the poetical stage he’s positively sickening.  You’ll be writing verses next.”

“I’ve written ’em,” Dan confessed, sheepishly; “oceans of mush.”

“Fancy!  Thank Heaven one of us is sane.”

“Our dispositions were mixed when we were born, Eliza.  You’re unsentimental and hard-headed:  I’m romantic.  You’ll never know what love means.”

“If you are a sample, I hope not.”  Eliza’s nose assumed an even higher tilt than usual.

“Well, if I knew I had no chance with Natalie I’d let Gordon’s men put an end to me—­that’s how serious it is.  But I have a chance—­I know I have.”

“Bosh!  You’ve lived in railroad camps too long.  I know a dozen girls prettier than she.”  Eying him with more concern, she asked, seriously, “You wouldn’t really take advantage of a service to Murray O’Neil to—­to tell him the nature of your insanity?”

“I might not actually tell him, but I’d manage it so he’d find out.”