"It only looks bad," he said. "We'll climb to the top and I'll go
down over the wall on a rope."

Neale had been let down over many precipices in those stony hills.
He had been the luckiest, the most daring and successful of all the
men picked out and put to perilous tasks. No one spoke of the
accidents that had happened, or even the fatal fall of a lineman who
a few weeks before had ventured once too often. Every rod of road
surveyed made the engineers sterner at their task, just as it made
them keener to attain final success.

The climb to the top of the bluff was long and arduous. The whole
corps went, and also some of the troopers.

"I'll need a long rope," Neale had said to King, his lineman.

It was this order that made King take so much time in ascending the
bluff. Besides, he was a cowboy, used to riding, and could not climb
well.

"Wal--I--shore--rustled--all the line--aboot heah," he drawled,
pantingly, as he threw lassoes and coils of rope at Neale's feet.

Neale picked up some of the worn pieces. He looked dubious. "Is this
all you could get?" he asked.

"Shore is. An' thet includes what Casey rustled from the soldiers."

"Help me knot these," went on Neale.