“What the devil are you doing there?” Trent asked. “Out you go with your master!” The boy looked up. He had a fair, smooth face, but lips like Trent's own. “I'm just thinking about that first bend by Kurru corner, sir,” he said, “I'm not sure about the level.” Trent's face relaxed. He held out his hand. “My boy,” he said, “I'll make your fortune as sure as my name is Scarlett Trent!” “We'll make that road anyway,” the boy answered, with a smile. * * * * * After a rest Trent climbed the hill to the Basle Mission House. There was no sign of Monty on the potato patch, and the woman who opened the door started when she saw him. “How is he?” Trent asked quickly. The woman looked at him in wonder. “Why, he's gone, sir--gone with the Jewish gentleman who said that you had sent him.” “Where to?” Trent asked quickly. “Why, to England in the Ophir!” the woman answered. Then Trent began to feel that, after all, the struggle of his life was only beginning. CHAPTER XXVIII It was then perhaps that Trent fought the hardest battle of his life. The start was made with only a dozen Kru boys, Trent himself, stripped to the shirt, labouring amongst them spade in hand. In a week the fishing boats were deserted, every one was working on the road. The labour was immense, but the wages were magnificent. Real progress was made and the boy's calculations were faultless. Trent used the cable freely. “Have dismissed Cathcart for incompetence--road started--progress magnificent,” he wired one week, and shortly afterwards a message came back--“Cathcart cables resigned--scheme impossible--shares dropping--wire reply.” Trent clenched his fist, and his language made the boy, who had never heard him violent, look up in surprise. Then he put on his coat and walked out to the cable station. “Cathcart lies. I dismissed him for cowardice and incompetence. The road is being made and I pledge my word that it will be finished in six months. Let our friends sell no shares.” Then Trent went back and, hard as he had worked before, he surpassed it all now. Far and wide he sent ever with the same inquiry--for labour and stores. He spent money like water, but he spent from a bottomless purse. Day after day Kru boys, natives and Europeans down on their luck, came creeping in. Far away across the rolling plain the straight belt of flint-laid road-bed stretched to the horizon, one gang in advance cutting turf, another beating in the small stones. The boy grew thin and bronzed, Trent and he toiled as though their lives hung upon the work. So they went on till the foremost gang came close to the forests, beyond which lay the village of Bekwando.