An' he sez whin the crick was dry ut hed a bottom, but whin wet ut
shure hed none."
"Then I have got a job on my hands," replied Neale, grimly.
Those days it took the work-train several hours to reach the end of
the rails. Neale rode by some places with a profound satisfaction in
the certainty that but for him the track would not yet have been
spiked there. Construction was climbing fast into the hills. He
wondered when and where would be the long-looked-for meeting of the
rails connecting East with West. Word had drifted over the mountains
that the Pacific division of the construction was already in Utah.
At the camp Colonel Dillon offered Neale an escort of troopers out
to Number Ten, but Neale decided he could make better time alone.
There had been no late sign of the Indians in that locality and he
knew both the road and the trail.
Early next morning, mounted on a fast horse, he set out. It was a
melancholy ride. Several times he had been over that ground, once
traveling west with Larry, full of ardor and joy at the prospect of
soon seeing Allie Lee, and again on the return, in despair at the
loss of her.
He rode the twenty miles in three hours. The camp of dirty tents was
clustered in a hot valley surrounded by hills sparsely fringed with
trees.
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