“Well, if there’s nothing better I can do,” agreed Terry. “It’s fun to help the track go forward, anyhow. We’ll beat the Central folks.”
“Yes, siree!” General Casement declared. He was a great little man, this General “Jack” Casement: a wiry, nervy, snappy little man, not much more than five feet tall, peaceful weight about 135 pounds and fighting weight about a ton—“an’ sure there’s sand enough in him to ballast the tracks clear to Californy,” Pat asserted. He had a brown beard and a bold blue eye and a voice like a whip-crack. His brother “Dan” Casement was smaller still, outside, but just as big inside. They two were commanders of the grading and track-laying outfits.
“There’s one more party to go out yet,” General Dodge suddenly said; “and that’s mine. If General Casement will lend you to me, maybe I’ll have a place for you. We’ll see if we can’t find the Bates party, and George Stanton.” And he added, with a smile, to the other men: “A fellow can always use a boy, around camp, you know, gentlemen.”
“Golly! I’d sure like to go, sir,” Terry blurted.
“Were you ever farther west?”
“Yes, sir. I helped drive stage, when I was working for the Overland. And George and I had a pass to Salt Lake, but George broke his leg up on the divide, in the mountains, so we quit and came back.”
“How did you happen to get a pass?”
“Just for something we did. We brought a stage through, when the driver was near frozen. ’Twasn’t much, though. But we were glad to get a pass. We’d never been west over the line.”
“How far east have you been over this line?” asked the general, keenly.
“North Platte, is all. I joined at North Platte, this spring, when you began the big push to make 290 miles before stopping again.”