During this strenuous preliminary period in which he was striving to gather the multiplicity of working threads into his hands, David lived in the bunk trains and mess tents, getting in touch with the various units of the laboring armies, and absorbing the details as a thirsty dog laps water. To his great satisfaction he found his staff largely composed of young men eager to make a record; eager, also, to pledge fealty to a chief who was himself young enough to be still in the process of winning his spurs. Plegg, the first assistant, was the single exception to the youth of the staff. He was a man of middle age, and at their first meeting David was struck with a vague sense of familiarity; an elusive impression that he had somewhere in the memory files a picture of the senior assistant’s weathered face, with its clipped beard, shrewd eyes and thin-lipped mouth about which a half-cynical smile played so often and so easily as to become almost an added feature. “Have we ever met before, Mr. Plegg?” he had asked, at that first meeting; and the mildly sardonic smile had immediately fallen into broader lines. “Once, Mr. Vallory; on a fine June morning nearly a year ago. It was in a Pullman sleeper, back in God’s country; and, if I recall it correctly, I told you you would go far if you were not too good. You are fulfilling my little prophecy very handsomely; and incidentally we are both proving the truth of that old bromide about the extreme narrowness of the world we live in. I’m glad to have you for my chief.” It was Silas Plegg who did the most toward helping the new chief in the absorbing of the details, and David Vallory early acquired a great and growing respect for the technical gifts of his first assistant. The organization of the engineering staff, and of the rank and file, was fairly geniusful, the hand of a master being evident in every disposition of the huge working army. David weighed and measured, studied and observed; and at the end of the preliminary month was ready to give credit where credit was due. “Plegg, you are too good an engineer to be anybody’s assistant,” he said, one evening after they had finished a round of the night-shift activities and had returned to the cramped quarters of the small bunk car which they shared together. “Why didn’t Mr. Grillage give you this job after Lushing quit?” Plegg’s smile was grim. “If I were really as cynical as you think I am, I might hint that possibly Mr. Grillage had a young man in his eye whom he wished to give a shove up the ladder. But I’ll stand it upon another leg. Mr. Eben Grillage is an excellent judge of men; and he knows me of old.” David shook his head. “That ought to be your very best recommendation. What have you ever done to make him pass you up in the promotion scheme?”