le. That won't do. We've got to get down to ninety feet.
Baxter's stuck. The new surveyor is floundering. Oh, it's bad business.
Neale... I don't sleep of nights."

"No wonder," returned Neale, and he felt suddenly the fiery grip of his
old state of mind toward all the engineering obstacles. "I'm going out
to look over the ground."

"I'll send Baxter and some of the men with you."

"No, thanks," replied Neale. "I'd rather--take up my job all alone out
there."

The chief's acquiescence was silent and eloquent.

Neale strode outdoors. The color of things, the feel of wind, the sounds
of men and horses all about him, had remarkably changed, just as he
himself had incalculably changed; General Lodge had said--transfigured!

He walked down to the construction line and went among the idle men and
the strings of cars, the piles of rails and the piles of ties. He seemed
to absorb in them again. Then he walked down the loose, unspiked ties to
where they ended, and so on along the graded road-bed to the point where
his quick eyes recognized the trouble. They swiftly took in what had
been done and what had been attempted. How much needless work begun and
completed in the building of the railroad! He clambered around in the
sand, up and down the ravine, over the rocks, along the stream for half
a mile, and it was laborious work. But how good to pant and sweat once
more! He retraced his steps. Then he climbed the long slope of the hill.
The wind up there blew him a welcome, and the sting and taste of dust
were sweet. His steps was swift. And then again he loitered, with keen,
roving glance studying the lay of the ground. Neale's was the deductive
method of arriving at conclusions. Today he was inspired. And at length
there blazed suddenly his solution to the problem.

Then he gazed over the rolling hills with contemplative and dreamy
vision. They were beautiful, strong, changeless--and he divined now how
they might have helped him if he had only looked with seeing eyes.

Late that afternoon, tired and dusty, he tramped into the big office
room. General Lodge was pacing the floor, chewing at his cigar; Baxter
sat over blueprint papers, and his face was weary; Colonel Dillon,
Campbell, and several other young men were there.

Neale saw that his manner of entrance, or the look of him, or both
together, struck these men singularly. He laughed.

"It was great--going back to my job!" he exclaimed.

Baxter sat up. General Lodge