The trip to the city was uneventful. She awoke early, after a good rest, and hurried down to the forge works, a huge smoky foundry near the river. The shop foreman met her with the utmost courtesy and promised that the bail should be made and delivered aboard the afternoon train. Feeling very capable and assured, Marian went back to the club and had spent two pleasant hours in its reading-room when she was called to the telephone.
"Miss Hallowell?" It was the voice of the forge works foreman. "I--er--most unluckily we have mislaid the slip of paper which gave the dimensions of the bail. We cannot go on until we have those dimensions. Do you remember the figures?"
Poor Marian racked her brain. Not one measurement could she call to mind.
"I'll ask my brother over the long-distance," she told the foreman. But even as she spoke, she knew that there was no hope of reaching Roderick. All the long-distance wires were down.
"And not one human being in all Saint Louis who can tell me the size of that bail!" she groaned. "Oh, why didn't I measure it with my own tape-measure--and then learn the figures by heart! Yet--I do wonder! Would Commodore McCloskey know? He has been at the camp so often, and he knows everything about our machinery. Let's see."
Presently Commodore McCloskey's friendly voice rang over the wire.
"Well, sure 'tis good luck that ye caught me at the dock, Miss Marian. The _Lucy_ is just startin' up-river. Two minutes more and I'd have gone aboard. So ye've lost the bail dimensions? Well, well, don't talk so panicky-like. I'll be with ye in two minutes, an' we'll go to the forge together. 'Tis no grand memory I have, but I can give them a workin' idea."
"Oh, if you only will, commodore! But the _Lucy_! How can you be spared?"
"Hoot, toot. The _Lucy_ can wait while I go shoppin' with you. Yes, she has a time schedule, I know well. But, in high wather, whoever expects a Mississippi packet to be on time? Or in low wather, either, for that matter. I'll come to ye at once."
The commodore was as good as his word. Soon he and Marian reached the forge works. There his shrewd observation and his wise old memory suggested dimensions which proved later to be correct in every detail. Moreover, he insisted upon staying with Marian till the bail should be welded. Then, under his sharp eyes, it was loaded safely on the Grafton train. As he escorted Marian elegantly into the passenger coach, she ventured, between her exclamations of gratitude, to reprove him very gently.