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.”