Old Buck swore roundly. He caught up an ax and chopped away the sign of the cross that had been cut in the bark of the tree. With his boot-heels he quickly effaced that which had been cut in the ground. Then he knelt before his false god, the moonshine still. A voice cried out from the laurel, the voice of the Prophet. It seemed to hang in the air, like smoke--smoke of burning incense. "'_He came unto his own, and his own received him not._'" XII Dawn of that memorable day at Devil's Gate found the general manager of the Unaka Lumber Company dressed and standing in the opening of the tent he shared with Weaver. The foreman, too, was awake; he sat on a box inside, busily lacing his boots. Wolfe hadn't slept well because of that which bore so heavily upon his mind; he was quite nervous, which was exceedingly unusual for him; strive as he would, he could not rid himself of the feeling that disaster was very near. After a few minutes spent in absentmindedly watching the antics of a playful squirrel on the side of a nearby hickory, he turned to Weaver. Weaver was fully acquainted with the circumstances; Wolfe had found him extremely solid, and he had confided in him unreservedly. The two had grown to like each other well in the few months they had spent in working together. "You're sure," Wolfe asked, "that we've got enough ties cut and piled at the Gate to reach to the mill-site?" "There's four thousand in that pile, sir," said the foreman. "It ought to be enough. I'm going down to the engine, Weaver, to see if Tom's got her fired up. Wake the camp, and let's get out as early as we can." The foreman went out, put his cupped hands to his mouth and shouted an echoing, "Coo-ee!" In response to it, the tents of the negroes became instantly alive, and laughter and joking began to fill the morning air. There came from the cook's canvas domain the rattling of cast-iron. Soon the laborers were kneeling beside the sparkling creek with soap and towels. Not long afterward, many nostrils were sniffing hungrily at the mingled odors of frying bacon and steaming coffee. Wolfe found his geared locomotive already lifting at its safety-valve spring. He passed the negro engine-man a word of praise, and returned to the camp by an indirect route, trying to engage his worried mind with the autumnal splendor of the woods as he went. Breakfast was eaten as heartily as though no one expected anything out of the ordinary that day--and no one did, except for Weaver and Wolfe; the laborers had sensed nothing of the barrier that awaited the little railroad at the basin's mouth. Less than an hour later, the slow but powerful locomotive drew its string of lumber flats to a halt at a point near where the rails ended; it was a short distance below the Gate. The crew sprang to the ground, each man of it with a pick or a shovel, a spike-driving hammer or a crowbar, an ax or a saw. The work began forthwith.