Campbell greeted them with a bright smile.  “I’m back,” he said.

“So I see,” replied Neale, constrainedly.

“I’ve a message for you from the chief,” announced Campbell.

“The chief!” exclaimed Neale.

Larry edged closer to them, with the characteristic hitch at his belt, and his eyes flashed.

“He asks as a personal favor that you come out to see him,” replied Campbell.

Neale flushed.  “General Lodge asks that!” he echoed.  There was a slow heat stirring all through him.

“Yes.  Will you go?”

“I—­I guess I’ll have to,” replied Neale.  He did not feel that he was deciding.  He had to go.  But this did not prove that he must take up his old work.

Larry swung his hand on Neale’s shoulder, almost staggering him.  The cowboy beamed.

“Go in to breakfast,” he said.  “Order for me, too.  I’ll be back.”

“You want to hurry,” rejoined Campbell.  “We’ve only a half-hour to eat an’ catch the work-train.”

Larry strode back toward the lodging-house.  And it was Campbell who led Neale into the restaurant and ordered the meal.  Neale’s mind was not in a whirl, nor dazed, but he did not get much further in thought than the remarkable circumstance of General Lodge sending for him personally.  Meanwhile Campbell rapidly talked about masonry, road-beds, washouts, and other things that Neale heard but did not clearly understand.  Then Larry returned.  He carried Neale’s bag, which he deposited carefully on the bench.

“I reckon you might as well take it along,” he drawled.

Neale felt himself being forced along an unknown path.

They indulged in little further conversation while hurriedly eating breakfast.  That finished, they sallied forth toward the station.  Campbell clambered aboard the work-train.

“Come on, Larry,” he said.

And Neale joined in the request.  “Yes, come,” he said.

“Wal, seein’ as how I want you-all to get on an’ the rail-road built, I reckon I’d better not go,” drawled Larry.  His blue eyes shone warm upon his friend.

“Larry, I’ll be back in a day or so,” said Neale.

“Aw, now, pard, you stay.  Go back on the job an’ stick,” appealed the cowboy.

“No.  I quit and I’ll stay quit.  I might help out—­for a day—­just as a favor.  But—­” Neale shook his head.

“I reckon, if you care anythin’ aboot me, you’ll shore stick.”

“Larry, you’ll go to the bad if I leave you here alone,” protested Neale.

“Wel, if you stay we’ll both go,” replied Larry, sharply.  He had changed subtly.  “It’s in me to go to hell—­I reckon I’ve gone—­but that ain’t so for you.”

“Two’s company,” said Neale, with an attempt at lightness.  But it was a pretense.  Larry worried him.

“Listen.  If you go back on the job—­then it ’ll be all right for you to run in heah to see me once in a while.  But if you throw up this chance I’ll—­”