“Are you a surveyor?” queried Neale, sharply, with the blood beating in his temples.

“I have some knowledge of civil engineering,” replied the commissioner.

“Well, it can’t be very much,” declared Neale, whose temper was up.

“Young man, be careful what you say,” replied the other.

“But Mr.—­Mr. Lee—­listen to me, will you?” burst out Neale.  “It’s all here in my notes.  You’ve hurried over the line and you just slipped up a foot or so in your observations of that section.”

Mr. Lee refused to look at the notes and waved Neale aside.

“It’ll hurt my chances for a big job,” Neale said, stubbornly.

“You probably will lose your job, judging from the way you address your superiors.”

That finished Neale.  He grew perfectly white.

“All this expert-commissioner business is rot,” he flung at Lee.  “Rot!  Lodge knows it.  Henney knows it.  We all do.  And so do you.  It’s a lot of damn red tape!  Every last man who can pull a stroke with the Government runs in here to annoy good efficient engineers who are building the road.  It’s an outrage.  It’s more.  It’s not honest ...  That section has forty miles in it.  Five miles you claim must be resurveyed—­regraded—­relaid.  Forty-six thousand dollars a mile! ...  That’s the secret—­two hundred and thirty thousand dollars more for a construction company!”

Neale left the office and, returning to Henney, repeated the interview to him word for word.  Henney complimented Neale’s spirit, but deplored the incident.  It could do no good and might do harm.  Many of these commissioners were politicians, working in close touch with the directors, and not averse to bleeding the Credit Mobilier.

All the engineers, including the chief, though he was noncommittal, were bitter about this expert-commissioner law.  If a good road-bed had been surveyed, the engineers knew more about it than any one else.  They were the pioneers of the work.  It was exceedingly annoying and exasperating to have a number of men travel leisurely in trains over the line and criticize the labors of engineers who had toiled in heat and cold and wet, with brain and heart in the task.  But it was so.

In May, 1866, a wagon-train escorted by troops rolled into the growing camp of North Platte, and the first man to alight was Warren Neale, strong, active, eager-eyed as ever, but older and with face pale from his indoor work and hope long deferred.

The first man to greet him was Larry King, in whom time did not make changes.

They met as long-separated brothers.

“Red how’re your horses?” was Neale’s query, following the greeting.

“Wintered well, but cost me all I had.  I’m shore busted,” replied Larry.

“I’ve plenty of money,” said Neale, “and what’s mine is yours.  Come on, Red.  We’ll get light packs and hit the trail for the Wyoming hills.”

“Wal, I reckoned so ...  Neale, it’s shore goin’ to be risky.  The Injuns are on the rampage already.  You see how this heah camp has growed.  Men ridin’ in all since winter broke.  An’ them from west tell some hard stories.”