General Lodge’s stern face relaxed, but he spoke firmly.  “Obey orders,” he admonished Larry King.

The loop was taken from Larry’s waist and transferred to Neale’s.  Then all was made ready to let the daring surveyor with his instrument down over the wall.

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.