the
road. These were the travelers, the business people, the stragglers,
the nondescripts, the parasites, the criminals, the desperadoes, and the
idlers--all who must by hook or crook live off the builders.

Neale was conscious of a sudden exhilaration. The spirit was still in
him. After all, his defeated ambition counted for nothing in the great
sum of this work. How many had failed! He thought of the nameless graves
already dotting the slopes along the line and already forgotten. It
would be something to live through the heyday of Benton.

Under a sign, "Hotel," he entered a door in a clapboard house. The place
was as crude as an unfinished barn. Paying in advance for lodgings, he
went to the room shown him--a stall with a door and a bar, a cot and
a bench, a bowl and a pitcher. Through cracks he could see out over an
uneven stretch of tents and houses. Toward the edge of town stood a long
string of small tents and several huge ones, which might have been the
soldiers' quarters.

Neale went out in search of a meal and entered the first restaurant. It
was merely a canvas house stretched over poles, with compartments at the
back. High wooden benches served as tables, low benches as seats. The
floor was sand. At one table sat a Mexican, an Irishman, and a Negro.
The Irishman was drunk. The Negro came to wait on Neale, and, receiving
an order, went to the kitchen. The Irishman sidled over to Neale.

"Say, did yez hear about Casey?" he inquired, in very friendly fashion.

"No, I didn't," replied Neale. He remembered Casey, the flagman, but
probably there were many Caseys in that camp.

"There wus a foight, out on the line, yisteddy," went on the fellow,
"an' the dom' redskins chased the gang to the troop-train. Phwat do
you think? A bullet knocked Casey's pipe out of his mouth, as he wus
runnin', an' b'gorra, Casey sthopped fer it an' wus all shot up."

"Is he dead?" inquired Neale.

"Not yit. No bullets can't kill Casey."

"Was his pipe a short, black one?"

"It wus thot."

"And did Casey have it everlastingly in his mouth?"

"He shlept in it."

Neale knew that particular Casey, and he examined this loquacious
Irishman more closely. He recognized him as Pat Shane, one of the
trio he had known during the survey in the hills two years ago. The
recognition was like a stab to Neale. Memory of the Wyoming hills--of
the lost Allie Lee--cut him to the quick. Shane had aged greatly. There
were scars on his face th