And as Neale slackened in his duty Larry King grew
more faithful.
Neale began to drink and gamble. For long the cowboy fought, argued,
appealed against this order of things, and then, failing to change
or persuade Neale, he went to gambling and drinking with him. But
then it was noted that Neale never got under the influence of liquor
or lost materially at cards. The cowboy spilled the contents of
Neale's glass and played the game into his hands.
Both of them shrank instinctively from the women of the camp. The
sight of anything feminine hurt.
North Platte stirred with the quickening stimulus of the approach
of the rails and the trains, and the army of soldiers whose duty was
to protect the horde of toilers, and the army of tradesmen and
parasites who lived off them.
The construction camp of the graders moved on westward, keeping
ahead of the camps of the layers.
The first train that reached North Platte brought directors of the
U. P. R.--among them Warburton and Rudd and Rogers; also
Commissioners Lee and Dunn and a host of followers on a tour of
inspection.
The five miles of Neale's section of road that the commissioners had
judged at fault had been torn up, resurveyed, and relaid.
Neale rode back over the line with Baxter and surveyed the renewed
part.
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