some telegrams from his pocket. He tried
to draw his gun on me--and then I drove them both out of camp. They got
through safely, for they were seen in Benton."

"Sir, it appears to me you lost your head to good purpose," said
Warburton. "Now just what were the tracks they wanted you to cover?"

"I drew the original plans for Number Ten. They had not followed them.
To be exact, they did not drive piles to hold the cribbings for the
piers. They did not go deep enough. They sank shafts, they built
coffer-dams, they put in piers over and over again. There was forty feet
of quicksand under all their work and of course it slipped and sank."

Warburton slowly got up. He was growing purple in the face. His hair
seemed rising. He doubled a huge fist. "Over and over again!" he roared,
furiously. "Over and over again! Lodge, do you hear that?"

"Yes. Sounds kind of familiar to me," replied the chief, with one of his
rare smiles. He was beyond rage now. He saw the end. He alone, perhaps,
had realized the nature of that great work. And that smile had been sad
as well as triumphant.

Warburton stamped up and down the car aisle. Manifestly he wanted to
smash something or to take out his anger upon his comrades. That was
not the quick rage of a moment; it seemed the bursting into flame of
a smoldering fire. He used language more suited to one of Benton's
dance-halls than the private car of the directors of the Union Pacific
Railroad. Once he stooped over Lodge, pounded the table.

"Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that quicksand hole!" he
thundered. "Over and over again! That's what galls me. Work done over
and over--unnecessary--worse than useless--all for dirty gold! Not for
the railroad, but for gold!... God! what a band of robbers we've dealt
with!... Lodge, why in hell didn't you send Neale out here at the
start?"

A shadow lay dark in the chiefs lined face. Why had he not done a
million other things? Why, indeed! He did not answer the irate director.

"Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that hole--for nothing!" shouted
Warburton, in a final explosion.

The other two directors laughed. "Pooh!" exclaimed Rogers, softly. "What
is that? A drop in the bucket! Consult your note-book, Warburton."

And that speech cooled the fighting director. It contained volumes. It
evidently struck home. Warburton growled, he mopped his red face, he
fell into a seat.

"Lodge, excuse me," he said, apologetically. "What our fine yo