"For a little while, I'm afraid," replied the trainman diplomatically. "I've been away over there on the dike to see if I could get permission to cross, but I didn't succeed." "Oh, conductor!" remonstrated Louise Donner. "And we don't get to Medicine Bend to-night," said Doctor Lanning. "What we need is a man of influence," suggested Harrison. "We ought never to have let your 'pa' go," he added, turning to Gertrude Brock, beside whom he sat. "Can't we really get ahead?" Gertrude lifted her brows reproachfully as she addressed the conductor. "It's becoming very tiresome." O'Brien shook his head. "Why not see someone in authority?" she persisted. "I have seen the man in authority, and nearly fell into the river doing it; then he turned me down." "Did you tell him who we were?" demanded Mrs. Whitney. "I made all sorts of pleas." "Does he know that Mr. Bucks _promised_ we should be In Medicine Bend to-night?" asked pretty little Marie Brock. "He wouldn't in the least mind that." Mrs. Whitney bridled. "Pray who is he?" "The construction engineer of the mountain division is the man in charge of the bridge just at present." "It would be a very simple matter to get orders over his head," suggested Harrison. "Not very." "Mr. Bucks?" "Hardly. No orders would take us over that bridge to-night without Glover's permission." "What an autocrat!" sighed Mrs. Whitney. "No matter; I don't care to go over it, anyway." "But I do," protested Gertrude. "I don't feel like staying in this water all night, if you please." "I'm afraid that's what we'll have to do for a few hours. I told Mr. Glover he would be in trouble if I didn't get my people to Medicine Bend to-night." "Tell him again," laughed Doctor Lanning. Conductor O'Brien looked embarrassed. "You'd like to ask particular leave of Mr. Glover for us, I know," suggested Miss Donner. "Well, hardly--the second time--not of Mr. Glover." A sheet of rain drenched the plate-glass windows. "But I'm going to watch things and we'll get out just as soon as possible. I know Mr. Glover pretty well. He is all right, but he's been down here now a week without getting out of his clothes and the river rising on him every hour. They've got every grain bag between Salt Lake and Chicago and they're filling them with sand and dumping them in where the river is cutting." "Any danger of the bridge going?" asked the doctor. "None in the world, but there's a lot of danger that the river will go. That would leave the bridge hanging over dry land. The fight is to hold the main channel where it belongs. They're getting rock over the bridge from across the river and strengthening the approach for fear the dike should give way. The track is busy every minute, so I couldn't make much impression on Mr. Glover."