The Donovan Chance by Francis Lynde

"What do you reckon these O. C. people will do, Larry, when they find that we've got ahead of them in the canyon?"

"Huh? " came a yawning grunt from the opposite tent cot. Then: "Good goodness! can't you let a fellow sleep for a few minutes?"

"A few minutes? It's ten o'clock, and I'll bet we're the only two people left in this camp――unless the other one is the mess cookee!"

"Ah-yow! " gaped the sleeper, turning upon his back and stretching his arms over his head. "I feel as if I'd been up three nights hand-running, and then some. Ten o'clock, did you say?"

"Yep, and five minutes after. I guess Mr. Ackerman gave orders to let us sleep――to pay for the hiking we did yesterday and last night. But you haven't told me yet what you think the O. C. bunch will do, now that we've pushed our grading force up and got ahead of them at the place where they were fixing to cross the river."

Before Larry could answer the tent flap was pulled open and a well-built young fellow about two years their senior stuck his face in and grinned good-naturedly at them.

"Now then, lazyheads! " was his greetings; "bout ready to turn out and wash your face and hands?"

"We're thinking about it," said Dick. "But just why, in particular――if you don't mind telling us?"

"Oh, nothing; only the chief said I might persuade you to help me. We're running the wires up to connect with the new ‘front,' and I'm needing a couple of bell-hops."

"Bell-hops nothing! " Dick scoffed. "You're 'way off. We're the pulchritudinous――that's a good word; stick it down in your note-book――we are the pul-chri-tu-di-nous little do-whichits of this outfit. Haven't you heard what we did last night?"

"Heard it? " laughed the young wire boss, whose name was the most unusual one of Smith. "Great Cesar! I haven't been hearing anything else! Time your story got passed around a few times, you'd think there was nothing to it in this camp with you two left out. That's what makes me want to do something for the good of your souls――help reduce the chestiness a bit. Turn out and snatch a bite of breakfast. We're about ready to get a move with the wire wagon."

"Listen to that, will you? " Dick groaned in mock distress; "bell-hops on a wire gang! Oh, well; I suppose there's no help for it. " Then, with a quick jerk at the blankets: "Beat you to the creek."

The Tourmaline, quieted at the camp site from a storming mountain torrent to a sparkling little river of quick-water swirls and crystal-clear pools, ran within a few yards of their tent. Whooping and yelling like a pair of playful Indians they raced for their bath, Larry stumbling at the edge and falling in with an inglorious splash, and Dick taking a neat header a second later as the loser in the race. They didn't stay in long. Melted mountain snow, even in June, isn't exactly what you might call tepid; but so far, they had not once missed the bracing morning plunge.

In the mess tent the fat Irish cook joshed them unmercifully for their lateness, but they noticed that he had been keeping the bacon and corn bread warm for them, and that the hashed-brown potatoes were freshly fried; also that the coffee seemed just about as good as new. "Barney wasn't forgetting us," Dick mumbled with his mouth full. "I'll bet he had his orders, too. It pays to be a do-whichit, Larry."

The breakfast despatched they found Smith ready to start with his wire outfit. Later, there would be regular telegraph and telephone lines installed between Red Butte and Little Ophir, but in the meantime wire communication had to be kept up between the different camps of the construction force.

By an hour or so past noon, with the hole-diggers and pole-setters pushing on ahead, and with a little auto-truck to carry material as far as a truck could be operated, the wires were up and tested out to a point just short of the canyon portal. Here the real difficulties began. In some places iron brackets had to be set in the face of a cliff, with the setter hanging in a rope sling from the top of things to drill the holes in the rock.

"A fellow doesn't need to be high-shy on a job of this kind," Dick asserted, looking up at one of the bracket men swinging like an exploring spider at the end of his rope web from a cliff ninety or a hundred feet high. Then to the wire boss: "What'll you take to let me set the next one, Smithy?"

Smith grunted.

"Nothing doing, son. It would cost me my summer's job if your general manager father ever heard of it. But you may take this coil of light line up there, you two, if you think you're good for the climb and the tote."

Lashing the coil of light rope to a carrying stick so that they could share the load, Dick and Larry "hit the hill," making a detour through a small side gulch to come at the cliff summit from the rear. The scrambling ascent accomplished, they found themselves at an elevation commanding an extended view across the canyon to the northward.