He had personally directed affairs up to this point, but he now obliterated himself, and the leadership devolved upon two others--Parker, small, smiling, gentle-mannered; Mellen, tall, angular, saturnine. Upon them, engineer and bridge-builder, O'Neil rested his confidence, serene in the knowledge that of all men they were the ablest in their lines. As for himself, he had all he could do to bring materials to them and to keep the long supply-trail open. Long it was, indeed; for the shortest haul was from Seattle, twelve hundred miles away, and the steel bridge members came from Pennsylvania. The piers at Omar groaned beneath the cargoes that were belched from the big freighters--incidentally, "Happy Tom" Slater likewise groaned beneath his burdens as superintendent of transportation. At the glaciers a city as large as Omar sprang up, a city with electric lights, power-houses, machine shops, freight yards, and long rows of winter quarters. It lay behind ramparts of coal, of grillage timbers and piling, of shedded cement barrels, and tons of steel. Over it the winter snows sifted, the north winds howled, and the arctic cold deepened. Here, locked in a mountain fastness more than a thousand miles from his base of supplies, O'Neil began the decisive struggle of his life. Here, at the focusing point of his enterprise, in the white heat of the battle, he spent his time, heedless of every other interest or consideration. The shifts were lengthened, wages were increased, a system of bonuses was adopted. Only picked men were given places, but of these there were hundreds: over them the grim-faced Mellen brooded, with the fevered eye of a fanatic and a tongue of flame. Wherever possible the men were sheltered, and steam-pipes were run to guard against the cold; but most of the labor was, of necessity, performed in the open and under trying conditions. At times the wind blew a hurricane; always there was the bitter cold. Men toiled until their flesh froze and their tools slipped from their fingers, then dragged themselves stiffly into huts and warmed themselves for further effort. They worked amid a boiling snow-smother that hid them from view, while gravel and fine ice cut their faces like knives; or again, on still, sharp days, when the touch of metal was like the bite of fangs and echoes filled the valley to the brim with an empty clanging. But they were no ordinary fellows--no chaff, to drift with the wind: they were men toughened by exposure to the breath of the north, men winnowed out from many thousands of their kind. Nor were they driven: they were led. Mellen was among them constantly; so was the soft-voiced smiling Parker, not to mention O'Neil with his cheery laugh and his words of praise. Yet often it was hard to keep the work moving at all; for steam condensed in the cylinders, valves froze unless constantly operated, pipes were kept open only by the use of hot cloths: then, too, the snow