, son!"

Neale slipped a ring from his little finger.

"Give Allie this. Tell her it's my pledge. I'll come back to her. And
she must think of that."

8

That summer the engineers crossed the Wyoming hills and ran the line
on into Utah, where they met the surveying party working in from the
Pacific.

The initial step of the great construction work was done, the engineers
with hardship and loss of life had proved that a railroad across the
Rockies was a possibility. Only, they had little conception of the
titanic labor involved in the building.

For Neale the months were hard, swift, full. It came to him that love of
the open and the wild was incorporated in his ambition for achievement.
He wondered if he would have felt the one without the other. Camp life
and the daily climbing over the ridges made of him a lithe, strong,
sure-footed mountaineer. They made even the horse-riding cowboy a good
climber, though nothing, Neale averred, would ever straighten Larry's
bow legs.

Only two incidents or accidents marred the work and pleasure of those
fruitful weeks.

The first happened in camp. There was a surly stake-driver by the name
of Shurd who was lazy and otherwise offensive among hard-working men.
Having been severely handled by Neale, he had nursed a grievance and
only waited for an opportunity for revenge. Neale was quick-tempered,
and prone to sharp language and action when irritated or angered. Shurd,
passing through the camp, either drunk or unusually surly, had kicked
Neale's instrument out of his way. Some one saw him do it and told
Neale. Thereupon Neale, in high dudgeon, had sought out the fellow.
Larry King, always Neale's shadow, came slouching after with his
cowboy's gait. They found Shurd at the camp of the teamsters and other
laborers. Neale did not waste many words. He struck Shurd a blow that
staggered him, and would have followed it up with more had not the man,
suddenly furious, plunged away to pick up a heavy stake with which he
made at Neale to brain him.

Neale could not escape. He yelled at Shurd, trying to intimidate him.

Then came a shot from behind. It broke Shurd's arm. The stake fell and
the man began to bawl curses.

"Get out of heah!" called Larry King, advancing slowly. The maddened
Shurd tried to use the broken arm, perhaps to draw on King. Thereupon
the cowboy, with gun low and apparently not aiming, shot again, this
time almost tearing Shurd's arm off. Then he prodded