ch to shoot. To Neale it seemed that King made too much of a
service Neale had rendered--the mere matter of a helping hand. Still,
there had been danger.

"Go down before me!" exclaimed Neale.

"I reckon," replied King.

"You will not," rejoined the other, bluntly. "I may not need you at all.
What's the sense of useless risk?"

"Wal, I'm goin'--else I throw up my job."

"Oh, hell!" burst out Neale as he strained hard on a knot. Again he
looked at his lineman, this time with something warmer than curiosity in
his glance.

Larry Red King was tall, slim, hard as iron, and yet undeniably graceful
in outline--a singularly handsome and picturesque cowboy with flaming
hair and smooth, red face and eyes of flashing blue. From his belt swung
a sheath holding a heavy gun.

"Wal, go ahaid," added Neale, mimicking his comrade. "An' I shore hope
thet this heah time you-all get aboot enough of your job."

One by one the engineers returned from different points along the wall,
and they joined the group around Neale and King.

"Test that rope," ordered General Lodge.

The long rope appeared to be amply strong. When King fastened one end
round his body under his arms the question arose among the engineers,
just as it had arisen for Neale, whether or not it was needful to let
the lineman down before the surveyor. Henney, who superintended this
sort of work, decided it was not necessary.

"I reckon I'll go ahaid," said King. Like all Texans of his type,
Larry King was slow, easy, cool, careless. Moreover, he gave a singular
impression of latent nerve, wildness, violence.

There seemed every assurance of a deadlock when General Lodge stepped
forward and addressed his inquiry to Neale.

"Larry thinks the rope will break. So he wants to go first," replied
Neale.

There were broad smiles forthcoming, yet no one laughed. This was one
of the thousands of strange human incidents that must be enacted in the
building of the railroad. It might have been humorous, but it was big.
It fixed the spirit and it foreshadowed events.

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