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 young friend here told me was like some one stepping on my gouty foot. I've been maybe a little too zealous--too exacting. Then I'm old and testy... What does it matter? How could it have been prevented? Alas! it's black like that hideous Benton... But we're coming out into the light. Lodge, didn't you tell me this Number Ten bridge was the last obstacle?"

"I did. The rails will go down now fast and straight till they meet out there in Utah! Soon!"

Warburton became composed. The red died out of his face. He looked at Neale.

"Young man, can YOU put permanent piers in that sink-hole?"

"Yes. They are started, on bed-rock," replied Neale.

"Bed-rock!" he repeated, and remained gazing at Neale fixedly. Then he turned to Lodge. "Do you remember that wild red-head cowboy--Neale's friend--when he said, 'I reckon thet's aboot all?'... I'll never forget him... Lodge, say we have Lee and his friend Senator Dunn come in, and get it over. An' thet'll be aboot all!"

"Thank Heaven!" replied the chief, fervently. He called to his porter, but as no one replied, General Lodge rose and went into the next car.

Neale had experienced a disturbing sensation in his breast. Lee! Allison Lee! The mere name made him shake. He could not understand, but he felt there was more reason for its effect on him than his relation to Allison Lee as a contractor. Somewhere there was a man named Lee who was Allie's father, and Neale knew he would meet him some day.

Then when the chief walked back into the car with several frock-coated individuals, Neale did recognize in the pale face of one a resemblance to the girl he loved.

There were no greetings. This situation had no formalities. Warburton faced them and he seemed neither cold nor hot.

"Mr. Lee, as a director of the road I have to inform you that, following the reports of our engineer here, your present contracts are void and you will not get any more."

A white radiance of rage swiftly transformed Allison Lee. His eyes seemed to blaze purple out of his white face.

And Neale knew him to be Allie's father--saw the beauty and fire of her eyes in his.

"Warburton! You'll reconsider. I have great influence--"

"To h.e.l.l with your influence!" retorted Warburton, the lion in him rising. "The builders--the directors--the owners of the U. P. R. are right here in this car. Do you understand that? Do you demand that I call a spade a spade?"

"I have been appointed by Congress. I will--"

"Congress or no Congress, you will never rebuild a foot of this railroad," thundered Warburton. He stood there glaring, final, a.s.sured.

"For the sake of your--your government connections, let us say--let well enough alone."

"This upstart boy of an engineer!" burst out Lee, in furious resentment.

"Who is he? How dare he accuse or report against me?"

"Mr. Lee, your name has never been mentioned by him," replied the director.

Lee struggled for self-control. "But, Warburton, it's preposterous!"

he protested. "This wild boy--the a.s.sociate of desperadoes--his report, whatever it is--absurd! Absurd as opposed to my position! A cub surveyor--slick with tongue and figures--to be thrown in my face! It's outrageous! I'll have him--"

Warburton held up a hand and impelled Lee to silence. In that gesture Neale read what stirred him to his soul. It was coming. He saw it again in General Lodge's fleeting, rare smile. He held his breath. The old pang throbbed in his breast.

"Lee, pray let me enlighten you and Senator Dunn," said Warburton, sonorously, "and terminate this awkward interview... When the last spike is driven out here--presently--Mr. Neale will be chief engineer of maintenance of way of the Union Pacific Railroad."

24

So for Neale the wonderful dream had come to pa.s.s, and but for the memory that made all hours of life bitter his cup of joy would have been full.

He made his headquarters in Benton and spent his days riding east or west over the line, taking up the great responsibility he had long trained for--the maintaining of the perfect condition of the railroad.

Toward the end of that month Neale was summoned to Omaha.

The message had been signed Warburton. Upon arriving at the terminus of the road Neale found a marvelous change even in the short time since he had been there. Omaha had become a city. It developed that Warburton had been called back to New York, leaving word for Neale to wait for orders.

Neale availed himself of this period to acquaint himself with the men whom he would deal with in the future. Among them, and in the roar of the railroad shops and the bustle of the city, he lost, perhaps temporarily, that haunting sense of pain and gloom. Despite himself the deference shown him was flattering, and his old habit of making friends rea.s.serted itself. His place was a.s.sured now. There were rumors in the air of branch lines for the Union Pacific. He was consulted for advice, importuned 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 a.s.sured."

Neale could only conjecture what those questions might have been, for the director offered no explanation. And this circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sociates, 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 cla.s.s 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 importance, and a singular grace that Neale felt rather than saw.

Strangest of all to him was the glimpse he got into the labyrinthine plot built around the stock, the finance, the gold that was constructing the road. He was an engineer, with a deductive habit of mind, but he would never be able to trace the intricacy of this monumental aggregation of deals. Yet he was hugely, interested. Much of the scorn and disgust he had felt out on the line for the mercenaries connected with the work he forgot here among these frock-coated gentlemen.

An hour later Neale accompanied Warburton to the station where the director was to board a train for his return to New York.

"You'll start back to-morrow," said Warburton. "I'll see you soon, I hope--out there in Utah where the last spike is to be driven. That will be THE day--THE hour!... It will be celebrated all over the United States."

Neale returned to his hotel, trying to make out the vital thing that had come to him on this hurried and apparently useless journey. His mind seemed in a whirl. Yet as he pondered, there gradually loomed up the reflection that in the eastern, or constructive, end of the great plan there were the same spirits of evil and mystery as existed in the western, or building, end. Here big men were interested, involved; out there bigger men sweat and burned and aged and died. The difference was that these toilers gave all for an ideal while the directors and their partners thought only of money, of profits.

Neale restrained what might have been contempt, but he thought that if these financiers could have seen the life of the diggers and spikers as he knew it they might be actuated by a n.o.bler motive. Before he dropped to sleep that night he concluded that his trip to Washington, and the recognition accorded him by Warburton's circle, had fixed a new desire in his heart to heave some more rails and drive some more spikes for the railroad he loved so well. To him the work had been something for which he had striven with all his might and for which he had risked his life.

Not only had his brain been given to the creation, but his muscles had ached from the actual physical toil attendant upon this biggest of big jobs.

When Neale at last reached Benton it was night. Benton and night! And he had forgotten. A mob of men surged down and up on the train. Neale had extreme difficulty in getting off at all. But the excitement, the hurry, the discordant and hoa.r.s.e medley of many voices, were unusual at that hour around the station, even for strenuous Benton. All these men were carrying baggage. Neale shouted questions into pa.s.sing ears, until at length some fellow heard and yelled a reply.

The last night of Benton!