chief engineer looked away down the shadowy gorge where the sun was burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard, bitter. Death stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of this railroad was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads and men to bloody graves.
The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp, a mile down the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were curling aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were ringing out, so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.
Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far distant. This tribe had gone on the war-path and had begun to harass the engineers. Neale’s tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of what might happen when the Sioux discovered the significance of that surveying expedition.
“The Sioux could make the building of the U. P. impossible,” said Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.
“No Indians—nothing can stop us!” declared his chief.
The troopers sent to follow Larry King came back to camp, saying that they had lost him and that they could not find any place where it was possible to get down into that gorge.
In the morning Larry King had not returned.
Detachments of troopers were sent in different directions to try again. And the engineers went out once more to attack their problem. Success did not attend the efforts of either party, and at sunset, when all had wearily returned to camp, Larry King was still absent. Then he was given up for lost.
But before dark the tall cowboy limped into camp, dusty and torn, carrying Neale’s long tripod and surveying instrument. It looked the worse for a fall, but apparently was not badly damaged. King did not give the troopers any satisfaction. Limping on to the tents of the engineers, he set down the instrument and called. Boone was the first to come out, and his summons brought Henney, Baxter, and the younger members of the corps. General Lodge, sitting at his campfire some rods away, and bending over his drawings, did not see King’s arrival.
No one detected any difference in the cowboy, except that he limped. Slow, cool, careless he was, yet somehow vital and impelling. “Wal, we run the line around—four miles up the gorge whar the crossin’ is easy. Only ninety-foot grade to the mile.”
The engineers looked at him as if he were crazy.
“But Neale! He fell—he’s dead!” exclaimed Henney.
“Daid? Wal, no, Neale ain’t daid,” drawled Larry.
“Where is he, then?”
“I reckon he’s comin’ along back heah.”
“Is he hurt?”
“Shore. An’ hungry, too, which is what I am,” replied Larry, as he limped away.
Some of the engineers hurried out in the gathering dusk to meet Neale, while others went to General Lodge with the amazing story.
The chief received the good news quietly but with intent eyes. “Bring Neale and King here—as soon as their needs have been seen to,” he ordered. Then he called after Baxter, “Ninety feet to the mile, you said?”
“Ninety-foot grade, so King reported.”
“By all that’s lucky!” breathed the chief, as if his load had been immeasurably lightened. “Send those boys to me.”
Some of the soldiers had found Neale down along the trail and were helping him into camp. He was crippled and almost exhausted. He made light of his condition, yet he groaned when he dropped into a seat before the fire.
Some one approached Larry King to inform him that the general wanted to see him.
“Wal, I’m hungry—an’ he ain’t my boss,” replied Larry, and went on with his meal. It was well known that the Southerner would not talk.
But Neale talked; he blazed up in eloquent eulogy of his lineman; before an hour had passed away every one in camp knew that Larry had saved Neale’s life. Then the loquacious Casey, intruding upon the cowboy’s reserve, got roundly cursed for his pains.
“G’wan out among thim Sooz Injuns an’ be a dead hero, thin,” retorted Casey, as the cowboy stalked off to be alone in the gloom. Evidently Casey was disappointed not to get another cursing, for he turned to his comrade, McDermott, an axman. “Say, Mac, phwot do you make of cowboys?”
“I tell ye, Pat, I make of thim thet you’ll be full of bulletholes before this railroad’s built.”
“Thin, b’gosh, I’ll hould drink fer a long time yit,” replied Casey.
Later General Lodge visited Neale and received the drawings and figures that made plain solution of what had been a formidable problem.
“It was easy, once I landed under that bulge of cliff,” said Neale. “There’s a slope of about forty-five degrees—not all rock. And four miles up the gorge peters out. We can cross. I got to where I could see the divide—and oh! there is where our troubles begin. The worst is all to come.”
“You’ve said it,” replied the chief, soberly. “We can’t follow the trail and get the grade necessary. We’ve got to hunt up a pass.”
“We’ll find one,” said Neale, hopefully.
“Neale, you’re ambitious and you’ve the kind of spirit that never gives up. I’ve watched your work from the start. You’ll make a big position for yourself with this railroad, if you only live through the building of it.”
“Oh, I’ll live through it, all right,” replied Neale, laughing. “I’m like a cat—always on my feet—and have nine lives besides.”
“You surely must! How far did you fall this time?”
“Not far. I landed in a tree, where my instrument stuck. But I crashed down, and got a hard knock on the head. When Larry found me I was unconscious and sliding for another precipice.”
“That Texan seems attached to you.”
“Well, if he wasn’t before he will be now,” said Neale, feelingly. “I’ll tell you, General, Larry’s red-headed, a droll, lazy Southerner, and he’s made fun of by the men. But they don’t understand him. They certainly can’t see how dangerous he is. Only I don’t mean that. I do mean that he’s true like steel.”
“Yes, he showed that. When the rope snapped I was sure he’d pull a gun on us. … Neale, I would like to have had you and Larry Red King with me through the war.”
“Thank you, General Lodge. … But I like the prospects now.”
“Neale, you’re hungry for wild life?”
“Yes,” replied Neale, simply.
“I said as much. I felt very much the same way when I was your age. And you like our prospects? … Well, you’ve thought things out. Neale, the building of the U. P. will be hell!”
“General,
