But intent as was their gaze, it could not rival that of the cowboy.

“Hold!” he yelled, suddenly pointing to where the strained rope curved over the edge of the wall.

The troopers held hard. The rope ceased to pay out. The strain seemed to increase. Larry Red King pointed with a lean hand.

“It’s a-goin’ to break!”

His voice, hoarse and swift now, checked the forward movement of the engineers. He plunged to his knees before the rope and reached clutchingly, as if he wanted to grasp it, yet dared not.

“Ropes was my job! Old an’ rotten! It’s breakin’ . . . !”

Soon as he spoke the rope snapped. The troopers, thrown off their balance, fell backward. Baxter groaned; Boone and Henney cried out in horror; General Lodge stood aghast, dazed. Then they all froze right in the position of intense listening.

A dull sound puffed up from the gorge, a low crash, then a slow-rising roar and rattle of sliding earth and rock. It diminished and ceased with the hollow cracking of stone against stone.

Casey broke the silence among the listening men with a curse. Larry Red King rose from his knees, holding the end of the snapped rope, which he threw from him with passionate violence. Then with action just as violent he unbuckled his belt and pulled it tighter and buckled it again. His eyes seemed blazing with blue lightning and they accused the agitated engineers of murder. But he turned away without speaking and hurried along the edge of the gorge, evidently searching for a place to go down.

General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and, if possible, recover Neale’s body.

“That lad had a future,” said old Henney sadly. “We’ll miss him.”

Boone’s face expressed sickness and horror. Baxter choked. “Too bad . . . but what’s to be done?”

The chief engineer looked away from the shadowy gorge where the sun was burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard, bitter. Death stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of this railroad was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads and soldiers and officers to their graves.

The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp a mile down the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were curling aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were ringing out, so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.

Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far distant. This tribe had gone on the warpath and had begun to harass the engineers. Neale’s tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of what threatened when the Sioux discovered the significance of that surveying expedition.

“The Sioux could make the building of the U.P. impossible,” said Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.

“No Indians . .