and desire to see this wild life out here. He said you’d land at the top if the U.P. is ever built . . . Chief engineer. Superintendent of maintenance of way!”

“Good Lord,” breathed Neale. “You’re not in earnest?”

“‘Wal, I shore am,’ as your cowboy pard says,” returned Henney. And then he shifted to earnestness. “Listen, Neale. Here’s the matter in a nutshell. You will be called up to run those particular and difficult surveys, as that of yesterday. But no more of the routine for you. Added to that you will be sent forward and back, inspecting, figuring. You can make your headquarters with us or in the construction camps, as suits your convenience. All this of course presently, when we get farther on. So you will be in a way free . . . your own boss a good deal of the time. And fitting yourself for that maintenance of way job. In fact the chief said that . . . called you Maintenance of Way Neale . . . I congratulate you. And my advice is, keep on as you’ve begun . .