Paul Carhart was gone. It would probably be a week to ten days before he would be able to get back to the track-end. And with him had gone the spirit of the work, the vitality and dash which had worked out at moments through the assistants and the men in a stirring sense of achievement, which had given to each young engineer and engineer’s assistant a touch of the glow of creating something, which had made this ugly scene almost beautiful. That steam-leaking locomotive and that rattle-trap of a “private car,” bearing the chief away into the dawn, left a sense of depression behind it. By noon of the following day, Old Van was growing noticeably morose. By mid-afternoon every man of the thousand felt the difference. Before supper time the heat, the gloom, the loneliness of the desert, the sense of a dead pull on the work, the queer thought that there was no such place as Red Hills anywhere on the map, and that even if there were, the western extension of the Shaky and Windy would never reach it, these thoughts were preying on them, particularly on Young Van, who was up and at work soon after noon. Through the second day it was worse. Young Van made stout efforts to throw more energy into his work, and then, in looking back on these efforts, recognized in them a confession of weakness. Paul Carhart never seemed to drive as he had been driving,--his work was always the same. In this frame of mind the young man, at evening, mounted a hummock to survey what had been accomplished during the day. But to his altered eyes the track was no longer a link in the world’s girdle; it was only a thin line of dirt and wood and steel, on which a thousand dispirited men had been toiling. Later he saw Charlie bringing the wagons into corral. He heard his brother ordering the cook sharply about, and he noted how doggedly the orders were obeyed. Then, finally, having laid out the details of the morrow’s work and smoked an unresponsive cigarette or two, he went to sleep. Old Van sat up later. And Charlie sat up later still, nearly all night in fact. He found a comfortable lounging place near Dimond’s post, in the shadow of the empty train. The grade was here slightly elevated, and, lying on one elbow, he could survey the camp. Now and then he made the rounds, looking after the half-dozen sentries whom he had posted on knolls outside the wide circle of tents and wagons, making sure that there was no drinking and that his men were advised as to their duties and responsibilities. Between trips he lay back, surrounded by a number of wide-awake laborers, and listened while Dimond recited the prowess of their chief. It was very comfortable there, stretched out upon the newly turned earth. The camp was very quiet. Only a few lights twinkled here and there, and it was not very late when these went out, one by one.