doomed caravan. It swelled and rolled away and again there was
silence.




4

In 1865, just after the war, a party of engineers was at work in the
Wyoming hills on a survey as hazardous as it was problematical. They
had charge of the laying out of the Union Pacific Railroad.

This party, escorted by a company of United States troops under
Colonel Dillon, had encountered difficulties almost insurmountable.
And now, having penetrated the wild hills to the eastern slope of
the Rockies they were halted by a seemingly impassable barrier--a
gorge too deep to fill, too wide to bridge.

General Lodge, chief engineer of the corps, gave an order to one of
his assistants. "Put young Neale on the job. If we ever survey a
line through this awful place we'll owe it to him."

The assistant, Baxter, told an Irishman standing by and smoking a
short, black pipe to find Neale and give him the chief's orders. The
Irishman, Casey by name, was raw-boned, red-faced, and hard-
featured, a man inured to exposure and rough life. His expression
was one of extreme and fixed good humor, as if his face had been
set, mask-like, during a grin. He removed the pipe from his lips.

"Gineral, the flag I've been holdin' fer thot dom' young surveyor is