"The side of that can be blown off," he muttered.
"But what's around the corner? If it's straight stone wall for miles
and miles we are done," said Boone, another of the engineers.
"The opposite wall is just that," added Henney. "A straight stone
wall."
General Lodge gazed at the baffling gorge. His face became grimmer,
harder. "It seems impossible to go on, but we must go on!" he said.
A short silence ensued. The engineers faced one another like men
confronted by a last and crowning hindrance. Then Neale laughed. He
appeared cool and confident.
"It only looks bad," he said. "We'll climb to the top and I'll go
down over the wall on a rope."
Neale had been let down over many precipices in those stony hills.
He had been the luckiest, the most daring and successful of all the
men picked out and put to perilous tasks. No one spoke of the
accidents that had happened, or even the fatal fall of a lineman who
a few weeks before had ventured once too often. Every rod of road
surveyed made the engineers sterner at their task, just as it made
them keener to attain final success.
The climb to the top of the bluff was long and arduous. The whole
corps went, and also some of the troopers.
"I'll need a long rope," Neale had said to King, his lineman.
It was this order that made King take so much time in ascending the
bluff.
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