Edwin L. Sabin

“ They all looked. Far down the track an engine, twitching a single car, was approaching. By her trail of dense wood smoke and the way she bounced on the little curves and bumps, she was making good time, too.
“Chief boss is on the job, sure,” quoth Bill.
“Usually is,” added Terry’s father. “Always has been. Nothing happens from one end of line to t’other, but he’s there.”
The fighting track-layers had seen, and began to cheer afresh. Away galloped a portion of the enemy, to pester the reinforcements. But the engine came right on, until it halted at the end of the construction-train. ”

“ The sight was fascinating: the rail-layers, four on a side, always on the run; the gaugers, clapping their gauges to each pair of rails as soon as dropped; the rail-truck, with its load projecting fore and aft, and its pusher crew straining with bowed backs; the spike and bolt placers, who never straightened but scurried, head down, on the heels of the pushers; the Chinese sledge men and wrench men, pressing closely; the two double lines of ballasters, as busy and as orderly as marching ants; Boss Minkler and Big Boss Crocker prancing and urging ”

“ The pesky Indian had daringly charged to the farthest pile of ties—a spare pile—tied ropes, and at a gallop dragging the ties to safer distance were erecting a barricade upon the track.
Evidently they meant business, this time. It was to be a fight to a finish. All up the graded roadbed the U. P. men were fighting off the red bandits—fighting from the dug-outs and the embankment and the wagon corrals; they had no chance to sally to the boarding-train. And here at the boarding-train Paddy Miles’ track-layers were fighting. ”

“ The men were lively, but the march was slowed. For two days the storm had raged, before the weather settled to clear and stinging cold. The construction-train, No. 119 switched to the pulling end, bucked the drifts with two engines; and as many men wielding shovels, scraping the grade, as wielded sledges and picks and crow-bars. There was plenty of wood, so that the boarding-train and camps were kept warm.
Terry rode his horse breast-high in the white mantle, to get the time from the gang bosses. ”

“ General Dodge, General Casement and Superintendent Reed already were running. Terry and George ran. Amid wild shouts the track-gang, some dropping their tools, others carrying crow-bars and picks and spades, ran, slipping and staggering as they pelted down the track, or by a shortcut forged through the deep snow. ”

“ These were the saloon keepers, gamblers, and speculators, in haste to fleece the railroad workers. The track men and the graders got three dollars a day, which meant rich picking for people bent upon selling nothing for something.
The land agents of the railroad company had selected the site for the next terminus town. Evidently it was across from old Julesburg, for this evening lights beamed out, in a great cluster, up the grade, where the “Hell on Wheels,” as the wrathful Pat Miles had dubbed it, was settling down like a fat spider weaving a web. ”

“ A squad of the Indians, dismounted, had thrown a tie across the track. A wild volley from the carbines had not stayed them. Engineer Richards, plunged in his own steam cloud, evidently did not see the tie; he came on, pushing Jimmie Muldoon’s loaded truck before him; the white horse tried to bolt and fell with a broken neck just as the rope parted; the smoke-stack [16] was atilt, and spitting smoke and steam from a dozen bullet-holes; but twitched by the roaring engine, the train moved faster and faster.
Up sprang the men, with a yell. ”

“ The mountains block us off, north and south. This is the natural highway for the rails, I think. The Central Pacific will have just as bad a desert, in western Nevada, until we meet them. If we can bring up our water from behind, while we’re building, we’ll put the rails across, and sink wells to supply the engines and stations. I’ll be glad to find that the Percy Browne surveys are the best for the railroad. The iron track through, by the trail that he discovered, will be an eternal monument to his memory. ”

“ Already the boarding-train had moved up a notch. The Pawnees from the camp were scattered along, watching the progress. The way with which the white man’s road grew, before their eyes, seemed to be a constant marvel to them.
“Faith, we’ll build our two miles this day in spite o’ the Injuns,” cheered the sweaty Pat, everywhere at once and urging on the toiling men.
The three commissioners were as interested as the Pawnees; they hung around, while Chief Engineer Dodge, General Jack Casement and Supervising Engineer Reed (who had arrived horseback) conferred in the headquarters car. ”

“ The location surveyors pressed after, with their maps and charts, to drive the stakes—at four, eight, twelve miles a day. Eating the stakes, 100 miles at a mouthful, the grading gangs, 8,000 and 10,000 strong, tried to keep fifty miles ahead of end o’ track. In their rear, ten and twenty miles ahead of end o’ track, the bridge crews and culvert crews plied hammer and saw. Behind them, and four or five miles ahead of end o’ track, the tie-layers and ballasters tugged and tamped. And end o’ track pursued with 500 other men and fifty teams. ”

“ A fellow could always do that, if he was smart: down his horse, fort behind it, and shoot true.
The yells were louder. The Indians were within easy range. In a moment the bullets would commence to sing.
“Now!” rasped Terry—and at the instant George’s horse stumbled, pitched to his knees, and sent George flying over its head. Terry reined in a jiffy, tumbled off, and leveled his carbine across the saddle. ”

“ The surveyors’ job is the most ticklish job, especially out on the desert and in the mountains. Track-layers, graders, and surveyors—they’re all heroes. They do the hard work, but the people who never see them don’t think of them. Well, will you stay aboard into Omaha? ”

“ The plateau was getting lively. A sprinkling of spectators by horse, wagon and buggy had come in from the west also. By all-night work the U. P. siding had been put in and completed. A squad of Pat’s men were tamping the ties, and tossing jokes at the C. P. men for having been outwitted. A squad of Chinamen from the Central camp were pottering along the C. P. roadbed. It all looked like business.
People continued to gather, and Terry fidgeted. About ten o’clock the C. P. construction-train, with the Stanford special as a trailer, puffed down, to halt at C. P. end o’ track, and wait. ”

“ Terry proffered. “He can ride my mule. Her name’s Jenny. She’s smart. She’d do the hauling without anybody on her.”
“All right. You make your arrangements with Pat and Jimmie Muldoon, then,” said General Casement.
“And I guess I’ll ask my father.”
“Where’s he?”
“He’s the engine driver for the boarding-train. That’s his job, because he got crippled up in the war.”
[36] “Oh, Ralph Richards?” queried General Dodge. “He was one of my soldiers, in that same war. You’re his boy, are you? Any more of the family on the U. P.?”
“My mother’s down at Denver still, but here’s my dog. His name’s Shep. ”

“ General Casement declared. He was a great little man, this General “Jack” Casement: a wiry, nervy, snappy little man, not much more than five feet tall, peaceful weight about 135 pounds and fighting weight about a ton—“an’ sure there’s sand enough in him to ballast the tracks clear to Californy,” Pat asserted. He had a brown beard and a bold blue eye and a voice like a whip-crack. His brother “Dan” Casement was smaller still, outside, but just as big inside. They two were commanders of the grading and track-laying outfits. ”

“ End o’ track, again! With the secret of the Home Cooking restaurant kept close from Engine Driver Richards; with Pat Miles urging the work, and the red-shirted, gray-shirted, blue-shirted Irish track-layers and spikers and ballasters sweating, and the sledges whanging, and the truck-loads of rails hauled by Jimmie Muldoon and brother astride horse and yellow mule rumbling up, and the puffing construction-train constantly elbowing the boarding-train out of the way, and the cheery song breaking forth ever and anon:
“Drill, my paddies, drill! ”

“ Terry blurted. “These C. P. fellows could build a whole track, grade and all, ten miles in a day, at the rate they’re going. Wonder if they’ll quit for noon.”
“They’ve got the dead-wood on Paddy Miles, sure,” George chuckled. “Look at him, with his mouth open and his pipe out!”
Higher rose the hot sun; still the rails clanked, and the sledges whanged, and the iron-truck rumbled, and the picks thudded, and the spades scraped, and ever and anon the two trains tooted their “coming up” signal. The air fairly quivered with action. ”

“ Did many C. P. folks get here first? Who are they all? We brought the whole U. P. gang in that scrumptious patent Pullman—Vice-President Durant, Colonel Seymour, Mr. Dillon and Mr. John Duff of the directors, the Casements and General Dodge and Mr. Reed and Major Hurd, and two silver spikes, and a heap of people from New York and Chicago and Boston and Omaha and I don’t know where else. Your mother and my mother, too. There’s another train right behind us, fetching Ogden’s mayor, and a raft of other Mormons, from Salt Lake City, and soldiers and a band from Fort Douglas down there. ”

“ The dining-car door slid back; the sweaty faces of the cook and cookee grinned down; the brakeman leaped off——
“Fall in, now! Fall in wid yez!” were Pat’s orders. “Take your distances ben’ath—two men to each pair o’ wheels. An’ them that hasn’t guns lay flat inside.”
Terry had no notion of lying flat inside. He plunged like a rabbit under the dining-car (bewildered Shep at his heels) , for a place between the rails; found none, and dodged on, trying not to step on anybody or be in the way. ”

“ For the rails had again sprinted. They passed right through the ravine of Rawlins Spring, dipped down into the Red Desert at the place where George and the rest of the Bates party had been rescued, and following the Percy Browne survey they never stopped for water or anything. The construction-train brought the water from behind, in tanks, until wells were drilled; wagons carried it forward to the grading gangs. Much of the water was rank with alkali and soda; it made the men ill, and foamed and encrusted in the engine boilers; but the Red Desert had no terrors for the U. P. gangs. ”

“ They [15] were no longer afraid of the strange “medicine.” For here they were, boldly tackling the cars, laying hands upon them, climbing aboard—and setting the brakes!
Their almost naked figures, outlined against the sky, atop the cars, tugged and hauled at the brake wheels. The brake-shoes ground harshly; fumy smoke floated from underneath, as the locked car-wheels slid on the rails; the engine, with throttle open, roared vainly. Out from the cab darted Fireman Bill Sweeny, mounted the tender and, skipping to the first car, revolver in hand, hung to the ladder while he raked the tops beyond. ”

“ And in mid-summer there had come a very distinguished party indeed, who inspected from Fort Sanders to end o’ track.
These were General U. S. Grant, himself, the chief of the Army; General Sherman, General Phil Sheridan, half a dozen other famous ’way-up army officers, Mr. Thomas C. Durant, of New York, the vice-president of the Union Pacific company and the man who raised the funds; and Mr. Sidney Dillon, again—the chairman of the board of directors.
They rode in a special Pullman car, and the track-layer gang eased up long enough to cheer them as they tumbled out and gazed about. ”

“ Terry and Shep found Harry Revere in the operator’s room of the passenger station—which also was the station-agent’s room.
“What do you have to do, Harry?”
“Nothing much. I only sell tickets and check up freight and bill express and send dispatches and read the wire and wrestle baggage and sweep out and answer questions and once in a while tend some woman’s baby while she goes home after something she’s forgotten. When there’s nothing more important, I eat or sleep. But I’m hoping to push on up front, where it’s lively. I aim to get to Salt Lake as soon as the rails and poles do. ”

“ It was a Mormon wagon train to help the road along. The Indians had ambushed them from a ravine—had killed two men, wounded others, stampeded the loose stock, and likely would have “wiped out” the whole party, Jim Bridger asserted, had the troops not arrived in nick of time.
“That’s a sample of what’s been happening to train crews, track-layers, graders, and survey parties from Fort Kearney in Nebraska clear to the mountains, general,” remarked General Dodge to General Rawlins. “The people out East cannot appreciate. ”

“ When Terry had joined the road, at the close of winter, North Platte boasted 2,000 people, counting the graders and track-layers, and was a “roaring” town. There was some talk of making it the headquarters of the Union Pacific, instead of Omaha.
It used to be livelier at night than in the day-time, even; but it certainly was lively enough this morning. A long freight-train was unloading ties and iron, to be added to the great collection of ties and iron already waiting for the haul onward to the next supply dump, [41] toward end o’ track. A passenger train had pulled in from Omaha. ”

“ There hadn’t been a thing here, except a prairie-dog town—and in three weeks there had been a brick round-house to hold forty engines, and a station-house, and a water tank heated by a stove so it wouldn’t freeze, and a big hotel to cost $18,000, and a knock-down warehouse (the kind that could be taken apart and fitted together again) almost as large, for the Casement Brothers, and fifteen or sixteen other business buildings, and over a thousand people, including gamblers and saloon keepers, living in all kinds of board and sheet-iron and canvas shacks. ”

“ On December 13 the tracks had descended the mountain as far as the Nevada line; were getting down into the foothills, and early in the spring would be amidst the sage-brush of the Nevada desert, with an open way to Salt Lake!
“Gee! We fellows’ll have to hustle,” George remarked, after he and Terry had succeeded in reading the tattered newspapers, passed around at Cheyenne. “They’ve got 600 miles yet to go, but it’s level; we’ve got 500 miles, and we’re just starting in on the mountains.” ”

“ Men ran up track at best speed; down jumped Paddy and the brakeman, and ran, too; with a “Come on, quick!” George legged to see, and Terry panted after.
The wreck was half a mile back; a crowd had already gathered around it—were laughing and whooping, and no wonder: for here were the two Dutchmen, sitting on the bank of the ditch, one of them smoking his pipe, and both well dazed but unharmed. They had been aboard, after all!
“An’ for why didn’t yez set the brakes?” Pat was storming. “Did yez want to kill us all?” ”

“ Into the new terminal station the telegraph poles advanced. The pay-car moved up, bringing the eager George. Then came the procession: Casement Brothers’ take-down warehouse and offices, and the gamblers’ tents and the side-shows and saloons, which had been only waiting, at Julesburg. Cheyenne rapidly swelled to 3,000 people, for now the news had passed that it was to be the winter quarters of the railroad. The Overland Stage changed its terminal, also, to keep with the gang, and put on a run between Denver and Cheyenne. ”