"We generally fall back on a cantilever," he says, without hesitation. Then he begins to tell you about one of the latest of American problems--the new bridge of the Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad, just now being built over the Pend Oreille River, Washington. They could span that narrow cleft only on the cantilever principle, and when they began to balance their cantilever, there was not enough room for the back arm. But the engineers only chewed off fresh cigars and began forcing their great span out mid-air. They made the balance by placing 600 tons of steel rails on the back-arm. For every foot the span reached out anew over a so-called "bottomless" they added a few more rails. You can generally trust an engineer in such a time as that. Look closely now upon the workmen who are fabricating this giant bridge. Look closely upon them. They are different from those whom we saw toiling in the caissons below. Scandinavians may and do toil as sand-hogs at the bottom of the stream; Lithuanians may mine the ore, and Hungarians roll it into steel; Americans build upon their toil and erect this bridge. These builders speak no unfamiliar tongue. They are the product of Ohio, the Middle West, the South, the Pacific Coast, New England; they rise immeasurably superior to every other class of labor employed upon the work. Some of them have been sailors, and their talk has the savor of the sea. All of them are men, clear-headed, cool-headed, true-headed men. If you come upon them at the noon-hour, sprawled along the narrow ledge of a single plank you may be impressed by two things--their Americanism and their cosmopolitanism. The first of these is writ upon each man as you look at him; the second is evident in talk with him. This big fellow must have been a sheriff out in Montana, and he must have been a sheriff for bad men to dodge; his neighbor is talking about his last job, a sky-high cantilever down in Peru. The two side-partners over by the tool-box are just back from India. American bridge-building talent encircles the world. Here is a boss who got his first training down on the Nile; his assistant has done some mighty big work on the Trans-Siberian. These are the men who are building the bridge. In a little time there will be no advancing ends, finding their path from pier-top to pier-top. There will be, instead, a long and slender path for the railroad; the bridgemen will have done their work well; a great river will have once again been conquered. * * * * *