XVII. The Fight with Death

At Camp No. 2 Maclennan had struck what was called a hard proposition. The line ran straight through a muskeg out of which the bottom seemed to have dropped, and Maclennan himself, with his foreman, Craigin, was almost in despair. For every day they were held back by the muskeg meant a serious reduction in the profits of Maclennan's contract.

The foreman, Craigin, was a man from "across the line," skilled in railroad building, selected chiefly because of his reputation as a "driver." He was a man of great physical force and indomitable will, and gifted in large measure with the power of command. He knew his business thoroughly and knew just how to get the most out of the machinery and men at his command. He himself was an untiring worker, and no man on the line could get a bigger day out of his force than could Craigin. His men he treated as part of his equipment. He believed in what was called his "scrap-heap policy." When any part of the machinery ceased to do first-class work it was at once discarded, and, as with the machinery, so it was with the men. A sick man was a nuisance in the camp and must be got rid of with all possible speed. Craigin had little faith in human nature, and when a man fell ill his first impulse was to suspect him of malingering, and hence the standing order of the camp in regard to a sick man was that he should get to work or be sent out of the camp. Hence the men thoroughly hated their foreman, but as thoroughly they dreaded to fall under his displeasure.

The camp stood in the midst of a swamp, thick with underbrush of spruce and balsam and tamarack. The site had been selected after a month of dry weather in the fall, consequently the real condition of the ground was not discovered until the late rains had swollen the streams from the mountain-sides and filled up the intervening valleys and swamps. After the frost had fallen the situation was vastly improved, but they all waited the warm weather of spring with anxiety.

On the crest of the hill which overlooked the camp the doctor halted the team.

"Where are your stables, Tommy?"

"Over there beyant, forninst the cook-house."

"Good Lord!" murmured the doctor. "How many men have you here?"

"Between two an' three hundred, wid them that are travellin' the road."

"What are your sanitary arrangements?"

"What's that?"

"I mean how do you--what are your arrangements for keeping the camp clean, free from dirt and smells? You can't have three hundred men living together without some sanitary arrangements."

"Begob, it's ivery man fer himsilf. Clane yersilf as ye can through the week, an' on Sundays boil yer clothes in soap suds, if ye kin git near the kittles. But, bedad, it's the lively time we have wid the crathurs."

"And is