"How can we he'p her knowin', Buddy? I tell you, son, the very stones o' Paradise'll rise up to testify against us, now, and at the last great day, maybe." The frown deepened between the young man's eyes. "The old, old phantom!" he said, half to himself. "Will it never be laid, even for those who know it to be a myth?" And then to his father: "It's no use, pappy. I tell you we've got to take this thing by the neck. See here; that's how near they came to settling me last night," and he showed the perforated coat-sleeve. Caleb Gordon was silenced. He resumed his restless pacing while Tom signed the call for help, read it over methodically, and placed it between dampened sheets in the letter-press. He had pushed the electric button which summoned Stub Helgerson, when the door opened silently and Jeff Ludlow's boy thrust face and hand through the aperture. "Well; what is it?" demanded Tom, more sharply than he meant to. The strain was beginning to tell on his nerves. "Hit's a letter for you-all from Mr. Stamford at the dee-po," said the boy. "He allowed maybe you-all'd gimme a nickel for bringin' hit." The coin was found and passed, and the small boy was whooping and yelling for Helgerson to come and let him through the gates when Tom tore the envelope across and read the telegram. It was from the Indiana city, and it was signed by the chairman of the Board of Public Works. "Proposals for water-pipe have been reopened, and your bid is accepted. Wire how soon you can begin to ship eighteen-inch mains," was what it said. Tom handed it to his father and stepped quickly to the telephone. There was a little delay in getting the ear of the president of the Iron City National at South Tredegar, and the bounding, pulsing blood of impatience made it seem interminable. "Is that you, Mr. Henniker? This is Gordon at the Chiawassee plant, Gordonia. We have secured that Indiana contract I was telling you about, and I'll be in to see you on the ten o'clock train. Will you save five minutes for me? Thank you. Good-by." Tom hung the ear-piece on its hook and turned to face his father. "Have you surrounded it?" he laughed, with a little quaver of excitement in his voice, which he had been careful to master in the announcement to the bank president. "We live, pappy; we live and win! Get word to the men to come up here at three o'clock for their pay. Tell them we blow in again to-morrow, and they can all come back to work and no questions asked. Can you stay on your feet long enough to do all that?" Caleb was nodding gravely; yet bewilderment was still in the saddle. "But the money for the pay-rolls, son--this is only an order to go to work," he said, fingering the telegram doubtfully. Tom laughed joyously.