“I appreciate how you feel. Don’t worry about it, Neale.”
“What’s this snag the engineers are up against?” queried Neale, abruptly changing the subject.
“We’re stuck. It’s an engineering problem that I hope—and expect you to solve.”
“Who ran this survey in the first place?”
“It’s Baxter’s work—with the men he had under him then,” replied the chief. “Somebody blundered. His later surveys make over one hundred feet grade to the mile. That won’t do. We’ve got to get down to ninety feet. Baxter’s stuck. The new surveyor is floundering. Oh, it’s bad business. Neale... I don’t sleep of nights.”
“No wonder,” returned Neale, and he felt suddenly the fiery grip of his old state of mind toward all the engineering obstacles. “I’m going out to look over the ground.”
“I’ll send Baxter and some of the men with you.”
“No, thanks,” replied Neale. “I’d rather—take up my job all alone out there.”
The chief’s acquiescence was silent and eloquent.
Neale strode outdoors. The color of things, the feel of wind, the sounds of men and horses all about him, had remarkably changed, just as he himself had incalculably changed; General Lodge had said—transfigured!