can always be overcome by the resources of finance, he could not help
being impressed by his surroundings during his halt at the surveying
camp established at the highest point his railway was to reach. He spent
the night there, arriving just too late to see the last dying glow of
sunlight upon the snowy flank of Higuerota. Pillared masses of black
basalt framed like an open portal a portion of the white field lying
aslant against the west. In the transparent air of the high altitudes
everything seemed very near, steeped in a clear stillness as in an
imponderable liquid; and with his ear ready to catch the first sound of
the expected diligencia the engineer-in-chief, at the door of a hut of
rough stones, had contemplated the changing hues on the enormous side
of the mountain, thinking that in this sight, as in a piece of inspired
music, there could be found together the utmost delicacy of shaded
expression and a stupendous magnificence of effect.

Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and inaudible strain
sung by the sunset amongst the high peaks of the Sierra. It had sung
itself out into the breathless pause of deep dusk before, climbing down
the fore wheel of the diligencia with stiff limbs, he shook hands with
the engineer.

They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubical boulder, with no
door or windows in its two openings; a bright fire of sticks (brought
on muleback from the first valley below) burning outside, sent in a
wavering glare; and two candles in tin candlesticks--lighted, it was
explained to him, in his honour--stood on a sort of rough camp table, at
which he sat on the right hand of the chief. He knew how to be amiable;
and the young men of the engineering staff, for whom the surveying of
the railway track had the glamour of the first steps on the path of
life, sat there, too, listening modestly, with their smooth faces tanned
by the weather, and very pleased to witness so much affability in so
great a man.

Afterwards, late at night, pacing to and fro outside, he had a long talk
with his chief engineer. He knew him well of old. This was not the first
undertaking in which their gifts, as elementally different as fire
and water, had worked in conjunction. From the contact of these two
personalities, who had not the same vision of the world, there was
generated a power for the world's service--a subtle force that could
set in motion mighty machines, men's muscles, and awaken also in