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CHAPTER XII.

BONE AND SINEW.

TILL we wrought, the Prince and I, patiently and industriously. So did thousands above us and below us ; there was a clang of picks and shovels, the smiting of steel on the granite, a sound through the sable forests, an echoing up the far hill-sides like the march of an army to battle, clashing the sword and buckler.

Every man that wrought there worked for an ob ject. There was a payment to be met at home ; a mortgage to be lifted. The ambition of one I knew was to buy a little home for his parents ; another had orphan sisters to provide for; this had an invalid mother. This had a bride, and that one the promise of a bride. Every man there had a history, a plan, a purpose.

Every man there who bent above the boulders, and toiled on silently under the dark-plumed pines and the shadows of the steep and stupendous moun tains, was a giant in body