His
mind seemed in a whirl. Yet as he pondered, there gradually loomed
up the reflection that in the eastern, or constructive, end of the
great plan there were the same spirits of evil and mystery as
existed in the western, or building, end. Here big men were
interested, involved; out there bigger men sweat and burned and aged
and died. The difference was that these toilers gave all for an
ideal while the directors and their partners thought only of money,
of profits.
Neale restrained what might have been contempt, but he thought that
if these financiers could have seen the life of the diggers and
spikers as he knew it they might be actuated by a nobler motive.
Before he dropped to sleep that night he concluded that his trip to
Washington, and the recognition accorded him by Warburton's circle,
had fixed a new desire in his heart to heave some more rails and
drive some more spikes for the railroad he loved so well. To him the
work had been something for which he had striven with all his might
and for which he had risked his life. Not only had his brain been
given to the creation, but his muscles had ached from the actual
physical toil attendant upon this biggest of big jobs.
When Neale at last reached Benton it was night. Benton and night!
And he had forgotten.
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