The U.P. Trail | Page 9

I can't be hauled up."
They all conceded this silently.
Then Neale sat down, let his legs dangle over the wall, firmly grasped
his instrument, and said to the troopers who held the rope, "All right!"
They lowered him foot by foot.
It was windy and the dust blew up from under the wall. Black canon
swifts, like swallows, darted out with rustling wings, uttering
frightened twitterings. The engineers leaned over, watching Neale's
progress. Larry King did not look over the precipice. He watched the
slowly slipping rope as knot by knot it passed over. It fascinated him.
"He's reached the bulge of rock," called Baxter, craning his neck.

"There, he's down--out of sight!" exclaimed Henney.
Casey, the flagman, leaned farther out than any other. "Phwat a dom'
sthrange way to build a railroad, I sez," he remarked.
The gorge lay asleep in the westering sun, silent, full of blue haze. Seen
from this height, far above the break where the engineers had first
halted, it had the dignity and dimensions of a canon. Its walls had
begun to change color in the sunset light.
Foot by foot the soldiers let the rope slip, until probably two hundred
had been let out, and there were scarcely a hundred feet left. By this
time all that part of the cable which had been made of lassoes had
passed over; the remainder consisted of pieces of worn and knotted and
frayed rope, at which the engineers began to gaze fearfully.
"I don't like this," said Henney, nervously. "Neale surely ought to have
found a ledge or bench or slope by now."
Instinctively the soldiers held back, reluctantly yielding inches where
before they had slacked away feet. But intent as was their gaze, it could
not rival that of the cowboy.
"Hold!" he yelled, suddenly pointing to where the strained rope curved
over the edge of the wall.
The troopers held hard. The rope ceased to pay out. The strain seemed
to increase. Larry King pointed with a lean hand.
"It's a-goin' to break!"
His voice, hoarse and swift, checked the forward movement of the
engineers. He plunged to his knees before the rope and reached
clutchingly, as if he wanted to grasp it, yet dared not.
"Ropes was my job! Old an' rotten! It's breakin'!"
Even as he spoke the rope snapped. The troopers, thrown off their
balance, fell backward. Baxter groaned; Boone and Henney cried out in

horror; General Lodge stood aghast, dazed. Then they all froze rigid in
the position of intense listening.
A dull sound puffed up from the gorge, a low crash, then a slow- rising
roar and rattle of sliding earth and rock. It diminished and ceased with
the hollow cracking of stone against stone.
Casey broke the silence among the listening men with a curse. Larry
Red King rose from his knees, holding the end of the snapped rope,
which he threw from him with passionate violence. Then with action
just as violent he unbuckled his belt and pulled it tighter and buckled it
again. His eyes were blazing with blue lightning; they seemed to accuse
the agitated engineers of deliberate murder. But he turned away without
speaking and hurried along the edge of the gorge, evidently searching
for a place to go down.
General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and if possible
recover Neale's body.
"That lad had a future," said old Henney, sadly. "We'll miss him."
Boone's face expressed sickness and horror.
Baxter choked. "Too bad!" he murmured, "but what's to be done?"
The chief engineer looked away down the shadowy gorge where the
sun was burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard,
bitter. Death stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of
this railroad was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads
and men to bloody graves.
The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp, a mile
down the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were
curling aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were
ringing out, so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.
Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had
sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far

distant. This tribe had gone on the war-path and had begun to harass the
engineers. Neale's tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of what
might happen when the Sioux discovered the significance of that
surveying expedition.
"The Sioux could make the building of the U. P. impossible," said
Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.
"No Indians--nothing can stop us!" declared his chief.
The troopers sent to follow Larry King came back to camp, saying that
they had lost him and that they could not