he next instant a horse was reined sharply up beside him, while
its rider was wringing his hand and uttering almost incoherent words of
extravagant joy at once more seeing him.

Chapter XXXVII.

A PRACTICAL USE OF TRIGONOMETRY.

It was Binney Gibbs who had come up the river from Fort Yuma several
days before, with General Elting, to meet the second division, and guide
them to "The Needles," the point at which the line was to cross the
Colorado. The other divisions, which had followed the Gila route, and
crossed the Colorado at Fort Yuma, where the desert was narrower, had
reached the Pacific ere this, and gone on to San Francisco. The hardest
task of all, that of running a line over the desert where it was two
hundred and fifty miles wide, had been reserved for Mr. Hobart's men,
who had proved themselves so capable of enduring and overcoming
hardships.

Binney had waited impatiently in camp until the transit-party reached
it, expecting to see Glen ride in at its head with the front flag. Then
he had borrowed a horse, and set forth to find the boy whom he had once
considered his rival, but whom he now regarded as one of his best
friends.

After the first exchange of greetings, they stood and looked at each
other curiously. Glen's hair hung on his shoulders, and the braid that
bound the brim of his sombrero was worn to a picturesque fringe,
matching that of his buckskin shirt. He was broader and browner than
ever; and though his face was still smooth and boyish, these last three
months had stamped it with a look of resolute energy that Binney noticed
at once.

He, too, was brown, though not nearly so tanned as Glen, in spite of the
burning suns of the Gila Valley; for his work had kept him under cover
as much as Glen's had kept him in the open air. As General Elting's
secretary, Binney had spent most of his time in the ambulance, that,
fitted up with writing-desk and table, was the chief-engineer's
field-office, or in temporary offices established in tents or houses
wherever they had halted for more than a day at a time. He had evidently
met with barbers along the comparatively well-travelled Gila; while, as
compared with Glen's picturesquely ragged costume, his was that of
respectable civilization. Although he, too, was the picture of health,
his frame lacked the breadth and fulness of Glen's, and it was evident
at a glance that, in the matter of physical strength, he was even more
greatly the other's inf