“Sir, it appears to me you lost your head to good purpose,” said Warburton.  “Now just what were the tracks they wanted you to cover?”

“I drew the original plans for Number Ten.  They had not followed them.  To be exact, they did not drive piles to hold the cribbings for the piers.  They did not go deep enough.  They sank shafts, they built coffer-dams, they put in piers over and over again.  There was forty feet of quicksand under all their work and of course it slipped and sank.”

Warburton slowly got up.  He was growing purple in the face.  His hair seemed rising.  He doubled a huge fist.  “Over and over again!” he roared, furiously.  “Over and over again!  Lodge, do you hear that?”

“Yes.  Sounds kind of familiar to me,” replied the chief, with one of his rare smiles.  He was beyond rage now.  He saw the end.  He alone, perhaps, had realized the nature of that great work.  And that smile had been sad as well as triumphant.

Warburton stamped up and down the car aisle.  Manifestly he wanted to smash something or to take out his anger upon his comrades.  That was not the quick rage of a moment; it seemed the bursting into flame of a smoldering fire.  He used language more suited to one of Benton’s dance-halls than the private car of the directors of the Union Pacific Railroad.  Once he stooped over Lodge, pounded the table.

“Three hundred thousand dollars sunk in that quicksand hole!” he thundered.  “Over and over again!  That’s what galls me.  Work done over and over—­unnecessary—­worse than useless—­all for dirty gold!  Not for the railroad, but for gold! ...  God! what a band of robbers we’ve dealt with! ...  Lodge, why in hell didn’t you send Neale out here at the start?”

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.