Tregarvon went to the front of the building, where he had established a rude excuse for an office, and opened the door. The farmers were there, waiting for their pay, and the settlement was made without waste of words on either side. But after the money had been handed out, Daggett was moved to make peaceful overtures, natural kindliness having gotten the better of resentment. They--the farmers--had been talking it over among themselves, and Daggett “allowed” that they might have been hasty. Without prejudice to the fact that they objected to being sworn at, they would come back Monday or Tuesday of the following week and finish the hauling job, if the boss so desired. At this, as was most natural after a night of worry and disappointment, Tregarvon’s temper flew into shards. “Not in a hundred years, you won’t!” he exploded wrathfully. “If I can’t move that machinery without your help, it may stand right where it is until it rots! You’ve got your money, and I’ve learned my lesson. We’re quits.” And with that he shouldered his way through the group and went to rally Tryon and the track gang, marshalling the handful of laborers for the ascent of the mountain in the tram-car. Some half-hour beyond this, the handful having taken a short-cut through the summit forest from the tramhead, Tregarvon found a sharp surprise awaiting him at the point on the pike where the truck load had been halted for the night. Scattered along the road or drawn up under the trees were a dozen or more teams of all sorts and descriptions--raw-boned mules in mismatched pairs, spans in which an ancient horse was harnessed with a mule or with another horse to the full as venerable, animals with back-bones like ridge-poles, others posturing as the halt, the lame, and the blind, and, completing the makeshifts, a wagon drawn by a pair of diminutive bulls. The drivers of this new levy were harmoniously in keeping with their outworn stock, decrepit wagons, and rope-patched harnesses; lank, sallow-faced mountain men of the McNabb type, with a toothless patriarch of the McNabb name to act as their spokesman. “We-uns done heerd you-uns wuz a-needin’ holp fer to pull thish-yer load thoo the woods,” said the aged spokesman, shrilling in a high, cracked voice at Tregarvon. “Me an’ th’ boys ’lowed we’d drap erlong an’ gin ye a h’ist. How-all does ye hitch on ter that thar kintraption?” with a thumb-jerk over his shoulder toward the loaded truck. Tregarvon recovered from his surprise in a rebound of heartfelt thankfulness. Here was manna from the skies, indeed. He asked no questions; made no ungrateful effort to pry into the whys and wherefores of the miracle. It was enough that the gods had relented. Treading softly among the adjectives, he proceeded to set his curiously assorted helpers, man and beast, in order, and the advance was begun.