"Well, no, not exactly; I ought to be the president of the company, but I ain't," answered Mr. Kipps. "If I was, some of us bridgemen would get better pay, and a chance to sleep nights some o' the time." "Then you are bridgemen; and I saw you knocking in the heads of the spikes over there. I suppose you were sent down here to rebuild this bridge if the enemy destroyed it." "That's jest what we are here for; but I don't reckon the enemy'll destroy it this time." "I should say not." "But I was lookin' for my gang-mates, and I don't see what's become on 'em;" and Kipps looked about him as though he really wished to find them. "I had to go down below to git a hunk o' t'backer out'n the wagon, and the t'other three went down this way;" and the bridgeman produced a great twist of the native weed, and bit off enough to load two pipes. "I reckon you hain't seen nothin' on 'em, hev yon, Deck Lyons? I reckoned they went over the creek." "I have not seen any of them, and no one has crossed the bridge since I came upon it," replied Deck. "I rather think I can fetch 'em if they are anywhere round here," added Kipps, as he took a whistle from his pocket and applied it to his lips, producing three short blasts. "All on us carries one o' these, because we sometimes get scattered on the work." The whistle seemed to be as potent as that of the boatswain on board of a man-of-war, for one after another three men mounted to the bridge just beyond the abutment on the farther side. Each of them had a pipe in his mouth, and they came upon the track as though they were in no hurry. They were dressed like Kipps, in workingmen's clothes, and one of them was about six feet and a half high. All of them had axes in their hands, but none of them seemed to be provided with firearms. "They weren't fur off, and they kept awful still, or I should have hearn them," said Kipps, as they crossed the track and placed themselves behind the fence. Deck wondered how they had secured a place down the embankment without being seen by him; but his attention had been directed the other way to the position of the squadron. But he realized that they could have crossed the track some distance farther up the road, and walked down from there under the shadow of the road-bed. "Well, boys, I reckoned you'd got lost, for I couldn't find nothin' on you," said Kipps, as the men approached the end of the fence at which Deck stood. "What you been doin', Lank Rablan?" "When you went down to the wagon, we uns dropped down the bank to have a smoke, and we got to talkin' about this business round here," replied the tallest of the three, who was about as lofty in his upper works as Life Knox, and about as spare in his filling up. "We consayted that this bridge was go'n' to get burnt up last night; but it's all here yet, and I reckon them so'diers down thar's done a big thing." "We hain't got no job on our hands for to-day," said another of them.