It was absorbingly
interesting, yet Neale could credit so few of the tales.
The summer and early fall passed.
Neale was ordered to Omaha. The news stunned him. He had built all
his hopes on another winter out in the Wyoming hills, and this
disappointment was crushing. It made him ill for a day. He almost
threw up his work. It did not seem possible to live that
interminable stretch without seeing Allie Lee. The nature of his
commission, however, brought once again to mind the opportunity that
knocked at his door. Neale had run all the different surveys for
bridges in the Wyoming hills and now he was needed in the office of
the staff, where plans and drawings were being made. Again he bowed
to the inevitable. But he determined to demand in the spring that he
be sent ahead to the forefront of the construction work.
Another disappointment seemed in order. Larry King refused to go any
farther back east. Neale was exceedingly surprised.
"Do you throw up your job?" he asked.
"Shore not. I can work heah," replied Larry.
"There won't be any outside work on these bleak plains in winter."
"Wal, I reckon I'll loaf, then," he drawled.
Neale could not change him. Larry vowed he would take his old place
with Neale next spring, if it should be open to him.
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