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.Troops were to be movingsoon,so Neale learned, and the long journey could be made in comparative safety.Here Neale received the tidings that forty miles of railroad had been builtduring the last summer, and trains had been run that distance west fromOmaha.His heart swelled.Not for many a week had he heard anything favorable to thegreat U.P.project, and here was news of rails laid, trains run.Alreadythisspring the graders were breaking ground far ahead of the rail-layers.Reportandrumor at the fort had it that lively times had attended the construction.Butthe one absorbing topic was the Sioux Indians, who were expected to swarm outofthe hills that summer and give the troops hot work.In due time Neale and Larry arrived at North Platte, which was little morethana camp.The construction gangs were not expected to reach there until late inthe fall.Baxter was at North Platte, with a lame surveyor, and no otherhelpers; consequently he hailed Neale and Larry with open arms.A summer'sworkon the hot monotonous plains stared Neale in the face, but he must resignhimself to the inevitable.He worked, as always, with that ability and energywhich had made him invaluable to his superiors.Here, however, the labor wasadull, hot grind, without any thrills.Neale filled the long days with dutyandseldom let his mind-wander.In leisure hours, however, he dreamed of AllieandPage 63 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthe future.He found no trouble in passing time that way.Also he watchedeagerly for arrivals from the west, whom he questioned about Indians in theWyoming hills; and from troops or travelers coming from the east he heard allthe news of the advancing railroad construction.It was absorbinglyinteresting,yet Neale could credit so few of the tales.The summer and early fall passed.Neale was ordered to Omaha.The news stunned him.He had built all his hopesonanother winter out in the Wyoming hills, and this disappointment wascrushing.It made him ill for a day.He almost threw up his work.It did not seempossibleto live that interminable stretch without seeing Allie Lee.The nature of hiscommission, however, brought once again to mind the opportunity that knockedathis door.Neale had run all the different surveys for bridges in the Wyominghills and now he was needed in the office of the staff, where plans anddrawingswere being made.Again he bowed to the inevitable.But he determined todemandin the spring that he be sent ahead to the forefront of the constructionwork.Another disappointment seemed in order.Larry King refused to go any fartherback east.Neale was exceedingly surprised."Do you throw up your job?" he asked."Shore not.I can work heah," replied Larry."There won't be any outside work on these bleak plains in winter.""Wal, I reckon I'll loaf, then," he drawled.Neale could not change him.Larry vowed he would take his old place withNealenext spring, if it should be open to him."But why? Red, I can't figure you," protested Neale."Pard, I reckon I'm fur enough back east right heah," said Larry,significantly.A light dawned upon Neale."Red! You've done something bad!" exclaimed Neale,ingenuine dismay."Wal, I don't know jest how bad it was, but it shore was hell," repliedLarry,with a grin."Red, you aren't afraid," asserted Neale, positively.The cowboy flushed and looked insulted."If any one but you said thet to mehe'dhev to eat it.""I beg your pardon, old man.But I'm surprised.It doesn't seem like you.Andthen—Lord! I'll miss you.""No more 'n I'll miss you, pard," replied Larry.Suddenly Neale had a happy thought."Red, you go back to Slingerland's andhelptake care of Allie.I'd feel she was safer.""Wal, she might be safer, but I wouldn't be," declared the cowboy, bluntly."You red-head! What do you mean?" demanded Neale."I mean this heah.If I stayed around another winter near Allie Lee- -withheralone, fer thet trapper never set up before thet fire— I'd—why,Neale, I'dambush you like an Injun when you come back!"Page 64 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"You wouldn't," rejoined Neale.He wanted to laugh but had no mirth.Larry did not mean that, but neither did he mean to be funny."I'll behangin'round heah, waitin' fer you.It's only a few months.Go on to your work,pard.You'll be a big man on the road some day."Neale left North Platte with a wagon-train.After a long, slow journey the point was reached where the graders had leftoffwork for that year.Here had been a huge construction camp; and the bare andsqualid place looked as if it once had been a town of crudest make, suddenlywrecked by a cyclone and burned by prairie fire.Fifty miles farther on,representing two more long, tedious, and unendurable days, and Neale heardthewhistle of a locomotive.It came from far off.But it was a whistle.Heyelled,and the men journeying with him joined in.Smoke showed on the horizon, together with a wide, low, uneven line of shacksand tents.Neale was all eyes when he rode into that construction camp.The place was abedlam.A motley horde of men appeared to be doing everything under the sunbutwork, and most of them seemed particularly eager to board a long train ofbox-cars and little old passenger-coaches.Neale made a dive for the train,andhis sojourn in that camp was a short and exciting one of ten minutes.He felt unutterably proud.He had helped survey the line along which thetrainwas now rattling and creaking and swaying.All that swiftly passed under hiskeen eyes was recorded in his memory—the uncouth crowd of laborers, thehardestlot he had ever seen; the talk, noise, smoke; the rickety old clatteringcoaches; the wayside dumps and heaps and wreckage.But they all seemed partsofa beautiful romance to him.Neale saw through the eyes of golden ambition andillimitable dreams.And not for a moment of that endless ride, with interminable stops, did hewearyof the two hundred and sixty miles of rails laid that year, and of the fortymiles of the preceding year.Then came Omaha, a beehive—the making of aWesternmetropolis!Neale plunged into the bewildering turmoil of plans, tasks, schemes,land-grants, politics, charters, inducements, liens and loans, Government andarmy and State and national interests, grafts and deals and bosses-all thatmassof selfish and unselfish motives, all that wealth of cunning and noble aims,allthat congested assemblage of humanity which went to make up the building oftheUnion Pacific.Neale was a dreamer, like the few men whose minds had first given birth tothewonderful idea of a railroad from East to West.Neale found himselfconfrontedby a singularly disturbing fact
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