The Man From The Bitter Roots

"Do the work!" scornfully. "You can pull off a chunk of mountain with a good donkey-engine and them motors. Why, on the drudgers up here in Alasky--"

"Do you know where you can get hold of any of these machines?"

"I think I do," Jennings reflected. "Before I went down North I knowed where they was a couple if they ain't been sold."

"Suppose you look them up and find out their condition--will you do this for me?"

"Bet I will, old man, I'd like to see you make a go of it. I gotta show up at Bertha's, then I'll run right out and look 'em over and report this evenin'."

Jennings kept his word and when Bruce saw him cross the office with a spray of lilies-of-the-valley in his buttonhole and stepping like an English cob he guessed that he either had been successful or his call upon Bertha had been eminently satisfactory. He was correct, it proved, in both surmises.

"They're there yet" he announced with elation, "in good shape, too. The motors need re-winding and there's some other little tinkerin', but aside from that--say, my boy, you're lucky--nearly as lucky as I am. I tell you I'm goin' to git a great little woman!"

"Glad to hear it, Jennings. But about this machinery, what's it going to weigh? I don't know that I told you but I mean to take it down the river."

"Bad water?"

"It's no mill-pond," Bruce answered dryly, "full of rapids." Jennings looked a little startled, and Bruce added: "The weight is a mighty important feature."

Jennings hesitated.

"The dynamos will weigh close to 22,000 pounds, and the whole 55,000 pounds approximately."

"They weigh a-plenty," Bruce looked thoughtful, "but I reckon I can bring them if I must. And there's no doubt about the must, as a wagon road in there would cost $20,000."

As the outcome of the chance meeting Bruce bought the machines upon Jennings's recommendation with a saving of much money and Jennings furthermore was engaged to make the necessary repairs and install the plant on the river. It was a load off Bruce's mind to feel that this part of the work was safe in the hands of a practical, experienced man accustomed to coping with the emergencies which arise when working far from transportation facilities.

Once this was settled there was nothing more for Bruce to do in the city and a great deal to be done upon the river, so he bade good-bye to Jennings and left immediately.

On the journey from the Pacific coast to Spokane the gritting of the car-wheels was a song of success, of achievement. Bruce felt himself alive to the finger-tips with the joy of at last being busy at something worth while. He looked back upon the times when he had thought himself happy with profound pity for his ignorance.