He was thinking of
Miriam Burrell's face and her last words to him: "I have heard, Mr.
O'Mara, that you have once or twice fought your way out of the dark, when
everybody else had lost hope. I want an opportunity to talk with--a
specialist in such campaigns!"
The probable nearness of him who had gone bounding away empty-handed from
the lighted shack was of far less moment than the possible identity of
the one who had furnished the inspiration of that night raid. And to
Steve the need of assuring that tall girl with the vivid lips and coppery
hair of Garry Devereau's safety bulked quite as important as did the
advisability of seeking immediately an informal interview with Dexter
Allison, such as the latter himself had so genially suggested.
But Fat Joe, squinting at his chief's broad back, misread the signs that
morning. From where he stood in the doorway he could see the men of the
upper camp already swarming out over the works, some of them mere dots
across the expanse of swamp-land. The rhythmic beat of pile-drivers
thudded in his ears; raucous echoes of shouted orders floated up from the
nearest gang-bosses, and punctuating it all came the intermittent boom of
dynamite explosions from far north in the deep cut alongside the river
edge.
The construction camp had been nearly two hours awake; the race against a
well-nigh impossible time limit which would brook neither mistake nor
miscalculation had been picked up automatically at daybreak, where it had
hesitated at nightfall the day before.
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