General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and if possible recover Neale’s body.
“That lad had a future,” said old Henney, sadly. “We’ll miss him.”
Boone’s face expressed sickness and horror.
Baxter choked. “Too bad!” he murmured, “but what’s to be done?”
The chief engineer looked away down the shadowy gorge where the sun was burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard, bitter. Death stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of this railroad was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads and men to bloody graves.
The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp, a mile down the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were curling aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were ringing out, so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.
Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far distant. This tribe had gone on the war-path and had begun to harass the engineers. Neale’s tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of what might happen when the Sioux discovered the significance of that surveying expedition.
“The Sioux could make the building of the U. P. impossible,” said Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.
“No Indians—nothing can stop us!” declared his chief.
The troopers sent to follow Larry King came back to camp, saying that they had lost him and that they could not find any place where it was possible to get down into that gorge.