Government of the United States, the army, a group of frock-coated
directors, and unlimited gold back of General Lodge, and bade him
build the road.

In all the length and breadth of the land no men but the chief
engineer and his assistants knew the difficulty, the peril of that
undertaking. The outside world was interested, the nation waited,
mostly in doubt. But Lodge and his engineers had been seized by the
spirit of some great thing to be, in the making of which were
adventure, fortune, fame, and that strange call of life which
foreordained a heritage for future generations. They were grim; they
were indomitable.

Warren Neale came hurrying up. He was a New Englander of poor
family, self-educated, wild for adventure, keen for achievement,
eager, ardent, bronze-faced, and keen-eyed, under six feet in
height, built like a wedge, but not heavy--a young man of twenty-
three with strong latent possibilities of character.

General Lodge himself explained the difficulties of the situation
and what the young surveyor was expected to do. Neale flushed with
pride; his eyes flashed; his jaw set. But he said little while the
engineers led him out to the scene of the latest barrier. It was a
rugged gorge, old and yellow and crumbled, cedar-fringed at the top,
bare and white at the bottom. The approach to it was through a break
in the walls, so that the gorge really extended both above and below
this vantage-point.

"This is the only pass through these foot-hills," said Engineer
Henney, the eldest of Lodge's corps.