The line was crowded with dark-faced navvies, watching the passage of the train as it crept forward.
One of the officials in command leapt up on the platform of the car, and introduced himself.

He was worn out with the day's labour, but triumphant.

"It's all right now--but, my word! the stuff we've thrown in!--" He and Anderson began some rapid technical talk.

Slowly, they passed over the quicksand which in the morning had engulfed half a train; amid the flare of torches, and the murmur of strange speech, from the Galician and Italian labourers, who rested on their picks and stared and laughed, as they went safely by.
"How I love adventures!" cried Elizabeth, clasping her hands.
"Even little ones ?" said the Canadian, smiling.

But this time she was not conscious of any note of irony in his manner, rather of a kind protectingness--more pronounced, perhaps, than it would have been in an Englishman, at the same stage of acquaintance.