“Come on, then, work up an appetite,” rejoined Neale.

“Shure I’ll die....  An’ I’d loike to ask, beggin’ ye’re pardon, hevn’t ye got some Irish in ye?”

“Yes, a little.”

“I knowed thot....  All roight, I’ll die with ye, thin.”

In half an hour Pat was in despair again.  He had to rest.

“Phwat’s—­ye’re—­name?” he queried.

“Neale.”

“It ought to be Casey.  Fer there was niver but wan loike ye—­an’ he was Casey....  Mon, ye’re sweatin’ blood roight now!”

Pat pointed at Neale’s red, wet shirt.  Neale slapped his breast, and drops of blood and sweat spattered from under his hand.

“An’ shure ye’re hands are bladin’, too!” ejaculated Pat.

They were, indeed, but Neale had not noted that.

The boss, Reilly, passing by, paused to look and grin.

“Pat, yez got some one to kape up with to-day.  We’re half a mile ahead of yestidy this time.”

Then he turned to Neale.

“I’ve seen one in yer class—­Casey by name.  An’ thot’s talkin’.”

He went his way.  And Neale, plodding on, saw the red face of the great Casey, with its set grin and the black pipe.  Swiftly then he saw it as he had heard of it last, and a shadow glanced fleetingly across the singular radiance of his mind.

The shrill whistle of the locomotive halted the work and called the men to dinner and rest.  Instantly the scene changed.  The slow, steady, rhythmic motions of labor gave place to a scramble back to the long line of cars.  Then the horde of sweaty toilers sought places in the shade, and ate and drank and smoked and rested.  As the spirit of work had been merry, so was that of rest, with always a dry, grim earnestness in the background.

Neale slowed down during the afternoon, to the unconcealed thankfulness of his partner.  The burn of the sun, the slippery sweat, the growing ache of muscles, the never-ending thirst, the lessening of strength—­these sensations impinged upon Neale’s emotion and gradually wore to the front of his consciousness.  His hands grew raw, his back stiff and sore, his feet crippled.  The wound in his breast burned and bled and throbbed.  At the end of the day he could scarcely walk.

He rode in with the laborers, slept twelve hours, and awoke heavy-limbed, slow, and aching.  But he rode out to work, and his second day was one of agony.

The third was a continual fight between will and body, between spirit and pain.  But so long as he could step and lift he would work on.  From that time he slowly began to mend.