"That's just it," he exclaimed. "Their talk leads nowhere. I went down and attempted to find out what their grievance might be, but they close up like clams whenever I come within earshot. They stare at the ceiling, rub their chins, and laugh when there's nothing to laugh at. This morning, however, I finally convinced McLean that something was radically wrong. So he took one of them who had just decided to quit and pinned him up against the embankment--but you know McLean and his methods! He shoved his jaw up within an inch of the other's nose and invited him to talk, and--well, he found out enough to make him begin to worry, too. Somebody's been talking to them, Mr. O'Mara; somebody has put the fool notion into their heads that this strip of railroad will mean the end of all lumber operations in this country--the old-time river drives, of course. And some of them are beginning to believe--whoever was responsible for that statement. "You know and I know how absurd it is. We know that this road will mean work for every riverman in this section, as often as he wants to work. But it isn't going to help us any if they can't see it that way. It isn't going to replace the men who quit. I've been deliberating one point. Don't you suppose we might import a regular squad of construction men now, before it's too late?" "It's too late now," Steve told him, his words none the less final for all that they were absently quiet. "It was too late the day we began operations. And yesterday at this time I wouldn't have given much worry to this particular brand of trouble. They're an odd lot; they're the hardest working, hardest living crowd of big men that ever failed entirely to grow up." Steve stopped and looked down at the sandwich untouched in his hand, much as though he were surprised to find it there. "But since yesterday--since yesterday--who, did you say, was responsible for that statement, as you call it?" "I didn't say." Elliott brushed away a persistent bluebottle fly, a lonesome survivor which the unseasonably warm day had reawakened. The insect's droning wings as it persisted again and again back to the sandwich plate made the only sound in that big, bare room. "And if I--if I had to guess----" The hand passed across his eyes now. "O'Mara, do you know how deeply Mr. Ainnesley and myself are involved in this prospect?" After a long search the engineer of the East Coast Company had finally located his pipe. "I don't believe I have ever given it much actual thought," he said. "I never viewed it as any of my affair. But I haven't forgotten the last time we talked the plans over, that you couldn't go into it to lose." Punctiliously Elliott proffered a lighted match for the other's filled pipe; he lighted a long and thin and very black cigar for himself. Steve noted then for the first time that the man's hand was shaking a little.