The next morning Tom emerged ready and enthusiastic to be about his new labors. He was captivated by the backwoods character of the scene when he stepped out of the cottage. There is a romantic charm about a temporary camp. All permanent camps fall victims soon or late to the demon of civilization.

To be sure, the hotel and cottage were permanent structures, but the little group which Tom had joined lived a sort of makeshift life on the lonely mountain. They were planting poles down the mountainside for telephone and lighting wires, they were patching the masonry of the little reservoir which would later supply running water. But they had none of these discordant conveniences in their labor of preparation. The little community seemed like a lumber camp.

The skilled workers who had in some degree renovated the hotel were through, and Ferris’ heroic struggles with the autocrats of labor were ended. Carpenters, tinsmiths and plasterers had held sway and departed to strike and demand shorter hours in other parts.

Only a lot of odds and ends remained to be done, work that could be attended to by the strange, miscellaneous group of needy adventurers who, hearing of the work up on the mountain, had made the pilgrimage there in hope of little more than board and keep.

How Ferris had secured the members of this dubious company, Tom never knew. Most of them had come great distances. Some of them had the Jack of all trades quality, but none of them was trained in any special line of work. Perhaps that was why they were not prosperous; strikers and organizers. But they all had a certain Bohemian, happy-go-lucky quality and did not take themselves too seriously. He thought they were ideal companions for rough, camp life.

Audry Ferris seemed not to share Tom’s liking for this hapless band. Perhaps it was natural that a purposeful, intelligent girl of strong character should look askance at this handful of queer men exhibiting so much of the vagabond temperament. Perhaps she contrasted them with her brother, strong, responsible, efficient.

Their amiability and free and easy way of taking their employment, their humorous squint at the serious work of life, seemed to annoy her and she regarded them all with a sort of tolerant disdain. She had no faith even in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as Ferris called them, who by their fidelity had certainly earned the right to some consideration. “They stay because there’s nothing else they can do,” she said.

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