rdon for his
work.

"He is worth no salary at present, sir," said the General. "I shall be
delighted to have him go with you, and your instruction will more than
compensate us."

The matter was finally settled by Rhodes declining positively to take
Gordon except on his own terms. He needed an axeman and would pay him as
such. He could not take him at all unless he were under his authority.

Mr. Rhodes was not mistaken. General Keith's name was one to conjure
with. Squire Rawson was the principal man in all the Ridge region, and
he had, as Rhodes knew, put himself on record as unalterably opposed to
a railroad. He was a large, heavy man, deep-chested and big-limbed, with
grizzled hair and beard, a mouth closer drawn than might have been
expected in one with his surroundings, and eyes that were small and
deep-set, but very keen. His two-storied white house, with wings and
portico, though not large, was more pretentious than most of those in
the section, and his whitewashed buildings, nestled amid the fruit-trees
on a green hill looking up the valley to the Gap, made quite a
settlement. He was a man of considerable property and also of great
influence, and in the Ridge region, as elsewhere, wealth is a basis of
position and influence. The difference is one of degree. The evidences
of wealth in the Ridge country were land and cattle, and these Squire
Rawson had in abundance. He was esteemed the best judge of cattle in all
that region.

Consistency is a jewel; but there are regions where Hospitality is
reckoned before Consistency, and as soon as the old squire learned that
General Keith's son was with the surveying party, even though it was, to
use a common phrase, "comin' interferin'" with that country, he rode
over to their camp and invited Gordon and his "friends" to be his guests
as long as they should remain in that neighborhood.

"I don't want you to think, young man," he said to Rhodes, "that I'm
goin' to agree to your dod-rotted road comin' through any land of mine,
killin' my cattle; but I'll give you a bed and somethin' to eat."

Rhodes felt that he had gained a victory; Gordon was doubtful.

Though the squire never failed to remind the young engineer that the
latter was a Yankee, and as such the natural and necessary enemy of the
South, he and Rhodes became great friends, and the squire's hospitable
roof remained the headquarters of the engineering party much longer than
there was any necessity for its bei