There he stretched
his hands to the blaze sod went on: "As I say, the 'fill' is safe
and will stay so, for the water is going down rapidly; dropped ten
feet, Breen, since you left. My!--but this fire feels good! Got
into something dry--did you, Breen? That's right. But I am not
satisfied about the way the down-stream end of the culvert acts"--
this also was addressed to Jack--"I am afraid some part of the
arch has caved in. It will be bad if it has--we shall know in the
morning. You weren't frightened, Puss, were you?"
She did not answer. She had heard that cheery, optimistic note in
her father's voice before; she knew how much of it was meant for
her ears. None of his disasters were ever serious, to hear daddy
talk--"only the common lot of the contracting engineer, little
girl," he would say, kissing her good-night, while he again pored
over his plans, sometimes until daylight.
She crept up to him the closer and nestled her fingers inside his
collar--an old caress of hers when she was a child, then looking
up into his eyes she asked with almost a throb of suffering in her
voice, "Is it as bad as the coffer-dam, daddy?"
Jack looked on in silence.
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