by Zane Grey
Neale took one more look at the rugged front of the cliff. When he straightened up the ruddy bronze had left his face.
“There’s a bulge of rock. I can’t see what’s below it,” he said. “No use for signals. I’ll go down the length of the rope and trust to find a footing. I can’t be hauled up.”
They all conceded this silently.
Then Neale sat down, let his legs dangle over the wall, firmly grasped his instrument, and said to the troopers who held the rope, “All right!”
They lowered him foot by foot.
It was windy and the dust blew up from under the wall. Black canon swifts, like swallows, darted out with rustling wings, uttering frightened twitterings. The engineers leaned over, watching Neale’s progress. Larry King did not look over the precipice. He watched the slowly slipping rope as knot by knot it passed over. It fascinated him.
“He’s reached the bulge of rock,” called Baxter, craning his neck.
“There, he’s down — out of sight!” exclaimed Henney.
Casey, the flagman, leaned farther out than any other. “Phwat a dom’ sthrange way to build a railroad, I sez,” he remarked.
The gorge lay asleep in the westering sun, silent, full of blue haze. Seen from this height, far above the break where the engineers had first halted, it had the dignity and dimensions of a canon. Its walls had begun to change color in the sunset light.
Foot by foot the soldiers let the rope slip, until probably two hundred had been let out, and there were scarcely a hundred feet left. By this time all that part of the cable which had been made of lassoes had passed over; the remainder consisted of pieces of worn and knotted and frayed rope, at which the engineers began to gaze fearfully.
“I don’t like this,” said Henney, nervously. “Neale surely ought to have found a ledge or bench or slope by now.”
Instinctively the soldiers held back, reluctantly yielding inches where before they had slacked away feet. But intent as was their gaze, it could not rival that of the cowboy.
“Hold!” he yelled, suddenly pointing to where the strained rope curved over the edge of the wall.
The troopers held hard. The rope ceased to pay out. The strain seemed to increase. Larry King pointed with a lean hand.
“It’s a-goin’ to break!”
His voice, hoarse and swift, checked the forward movement of the engineers. He plunged to his knees before the rope and reached clutchingly, as if he wanted to grasp it, yet dared not.
“Ropes was my job! Old an’ rotten! It’s breakin’!”
Even as he spoke the rope snapped. The troopers, thrown off their balance, fell backward. Baxter groaned; Boone and Henney cried out in horror; General Lodge stood aghast, dazed. Then they all froze rigid in the position of intense listening.
A dull sound puffed up from the gorge, a low crash, then a slow-rising roar and rattle of sliding earth and rock. It diminished and ceased with the hollow cracking of stone against stone.
Casey broke the silence among the listening men with a curse. Larry Red King rose from his knees, holding the end of the snapped rope, which he threw from him with passionate violence. Then with action just as violent he unbuckled his belt and pulled it tighter and buckled it again. His eyes were blazing with blue lightning; they seemed to accuse the agitated engineers of deliberate murder. But he turned away without speaking and hurried along the edge of the gorge, evidently searching for a place to go down.
General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and if possible recover Neale’s body.
“That lad had a future,” said old Henney, sadly. “We’ll miss him.”
Boone’s face expressed sickness and horror.
Baxter choked. “Too bad!” he murmured, “but what’s to be done?”
The 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. “S
ay, 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, I can see that. It sort of draws me — two ways — the wildness of it and then to accomplish something.”
“My lad, I hope you will accomplish something big without living out all the wildness.”
“You think I might lose my head?” queried Neale.
“You are excitable and quick-tempered. Do you drink?”
“Yes — a little,” answered the young man. “But I don’t care for liquor.”
“Don’t drink, Neale,” said the chief, earnestly. “Of course it doesn’t matter now, for we’re only a few men out here in the wilds. But when our work is done over the divide, we must go back along the line. You know ground has been broken and rails laid west of Omaha. The work’s begun. I hear that Omaha is a beehive. Thousands of idle men are flocking West. The work will be military. We must have the army to protect us, and we will hire all the soldiers who apply. But there will be hordes of others — the dregs of the war and all the bad characters of the frontier. They will flock to the construction camp. Millions of dollars will go along with the building. Gold!... Where it’s all coming from I have no idea. The Government backs us with the army — that’s all. But the gold will be forthcoming. I have that faith.... And think, lad, what it will mean in a year or two. Ten thousand soldiers in one camp out here in these wild hills. And thousands of others — honest merchants and dishonest merchants, whisky men, gamblers, desperadoes, bandits, and bad women. Niggers, Greasers, Indians, all together moving from camp to camp, where there can be no law.”
“It will be great!” exclaimed Neale, with shining eyes.
“It will be terrible,” muttered the elder man, gravely. Then, as he got up and bade his young assistant good night, the somberness had returned to his eyes and the weight to his shoulders. He did not underestimate his responsibility nor the nature of his task, and he felt the coming of nameless and unknown events beyond all divining.
Henney was Neale’s next visitor. The old engineer appeared elated, but for the moment he apparently forgot everything else in his solicitude for the young man’s welfare.
Presently, after he had been reassured, the smile came back to his face.
“The chief has promoted you,” he said.
“What!” exclaimed Neale, starting up.
“It’s a fact. He just talked it over with Baxter and me. This last job of yours pleased him mightily... and so you go up.”
“Go up!... To what?” queried Neale, eagerly.
“Well, that’s why he consulted us, I guess,” laughed Henney. “You see, we sort of had to make something to promote you to, for the present.”
“Oh, I see! I was wondering what job there could be,” replied Neale, and he laughed, too. “What did the chief say?”
“He said a lot. Figured you’d land at the top if the U. P. is ever built.... Chief engineer!... Superintendent of maintenance of way!”
“Good Lord!” breathed Neale. “You’re not in earnest?”
“Wal, I shore am, as your cowboy pard says,” returned Henney. And then he spoke with real earnestness. “Listen, Neale. Here’s the matter in a nutshell. You will be called upon to run these particular and difficult surveys, just as yesterday. But no more of the routine for you. Added to that, you will be sent forward and back, inspecting, figuring. You can make your headquarters with us or in the construction camps, as suits your convenience. All this, of course, presently, when we get farther on. So you will be in a way free — your own boss a good deal of the time. And fitting yourself for that ‘maintenance of way’ job. In fact, the chief said that — he called you Maintenance-of-Way Neale. Well, I congratulate you. And my advice is keep on as you’ve begun — go straight — look out for your wildness and temper.... That’s all. Good night.”
Then he went out, leaving Neale speechless.
Neale had many callers that night, and the last was Larry Red King. The cowboy stooped to enter the tent.
“Wal, how aboot you-all?” he drawled.
“Not so good, Red,” replied Neale. “My head’s hot and I’ve got a lot of pain. I think I’m going to be a little flighty. Would you mind getting your blankets and staying with me tonight?”
“I reckon I’d be glad,” answered King. He put a hand on Neale’s face. “You shore have fever.” He left the tent, to return presently with a roll of blankets and a canteen. Then he awkwardly began to bathe Neale’s face with cold water. There was a flickering camp-fire outside that threw shadows on the wall of the tent. By its light Neale saw that King’s left hand was bandaged and that he used it clumsily.
“What’s wrong with your hand?” he queried.
“I reckon nawthin’.”
“Why is it bound up, then?”
“Wal, some one sent thet fool army doctor to me an’ he said I had two busted bones in it.”
“He did! I had no idea you were hurt. You never said a word. And you carried me and my instrument all day — with a broken hand!”
“Wal, I ain’t so shore it’s broke.”
Neale swore at his friend and then he fell asleep. King watched beside him, ever and anon rewetting the hot brow.
The camp-fire died out, and at length the quietness of late night set in. The wind mourned and lulled by intervals; a horse thudded his hoofs now and then; there were the soft, steady footsteps of the sentry on guard, and the wild cry of a night bird.
CHAPTER 5
NEALE HAD NOT been wrong when he told the engineers that once they had a line surveyed across the gorge and faced the steep slopes of the other side their troubles would be magnified.
They found themselves deeper in
the Wyoming hills, a range of mountains that had given General Lodge great difficulty upon former exploring trips, and over which a pass had not yet been discovered.
The old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail wound along the base of these slopes and through the valleys. But that trail was not possible for a railroad. A pass must be found — a pass that would give a grade of ninety feet to the mile. These mountains had short slopes, and they were high.
It turned out that the line as already surveyed through ravines and across the gorge had to be abandoned. The line would have to go over the hills. To that end the camp was moved east again to the first slopes of the Wyoming hills; from there the engineers began to climb. They reached the base of the mountains, where they appeared to be halted for good and all.
The second line, so far as it went, overlooked the Laramie Trail, which fact was proof that the old trail-finders had as keen eyes as engineers.
With a large band of hostile Sioux watching their movements the engineer corps found it necessary to have the troops close at hand all the time. The surveyors climbed the ridges while the soldiers kept them in sight from below. Day after day this futile search for a pass went on. Many of the ridges promised well, only to end in impassable cliffs or breaks or ascents too steep. There were many slopes and they all looked alike. It took hard riding and hard climbing. The chief and his staff were in despair. Must their great project fail because of a few miles of steep ascent? They would not give up.
The vicinity of Cheyenne Pass seemed to offer encouragement. Camp was made in the valley on a creek. From here observations were taken. One morning the chief, with his subordinates and a scout, ascended the creek and then through the pass to the summit. Again the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail lay in sight. And again the troops rode along it, with the engineers above.
The chief with his men rode on and up farther than usual; farther than they ought to have gone unattended. Once the scout halted and gazed intently across the valley.
“Smoke signals over thar,” he said.
The engineers looked long, but none of them saw any smoke. They moved on. But the scout called them back.