tuned for positions, invited here and there. So that the days in
Omaha were both profitable and pleasurable.

Then came a telegram from Warburton calling him to Washington, D.C.

It took more than two days to get there, and the time dragged slowly for
Neale. It seemed to him that his importance grew as he traveled, a fact
which was amusing to him. All this resembled a dream.

When he reached the hotel designated in the telegram it was to receive a
warm greeting from Warburton.

"It's a long trip to make for nothing," said the director. "And that's
what it amounts to now. I thought I'd need you to answer a few questions
for me. But you'll not be questioned officially, and so you'd better
keep a close mouth... We've raised the money. The completion of the
U.P.R. is assured."

Neale could only conjecture what those questions might have been, for
the director offered no explanation. And this circumstance recalled
to mind his former impression of the complexity of the financial and
political end of the construction. Warburton took him to dinner and
later to a club, and introduced him to many men.

For this alone Neale was glad that he had been summoned to the capital.
He met Senators, Congressmen, and other government officials, and many
politicians and prominent men, all of whom, he was surprised to note,
were well informed regarding the Union Pacific. He talked with them, but
answered questions guardedly. And he listened to discussions and talks
covering every phase of the work, from the Credit Mobilier to the
Chinese coolies that were advancing from the west to meet the Paddies of
his own division.

How strange to realize that the great railroad had its nucleus, its
impetus, and its completion in such a center as this! Here were the
frock-coated, soft-voiced, cigar-smoking gentlemen among whom Warburton
and his directors had swung the colossal enterprise. What a vast
difference between these men and the builders! With the handsome
white-haired Warburton, and his associates, as they smoked their rich
cigars and drank their wine, Neale contrasted Casey and McDermott and
many another burly spiker or teamster out on the line. Each class was
necessary to this task. These Easterners talked of money, of gold, as a
grade foreman might have talked of gravel. They smoked and conversed
at ease, laughing at sallies, gossiping over what was a tragedy west
of North Platte; and about them was an air of luxury, of power, of
impor