Opening the iron trail

“Come on. Let’s see the fun!” excitedly cried young Mr. Duff, to Terry. “Maybe we can take a hand.”

“Yes—an’ mebbe you’ll lose yore hair,” Jim Bridger reproved.

“What do you say, General Rawlins? Shall we go over?” General Dodge queried—in tone about as eager as Mr. Duff’s. “We can show you Indian fighting——”

“General Augur commands, here, I believe. We’re in his department. If he thinks best——”

General Augur immediately barked a gruff command. The lieutenant in charge of the escort company shouted gladly. The company were already at attention, ready.

“By fours, march! Column right, march! Comp’ny, trot!” And—— “Gallop!”

Away they dashed: The cavalry, old Jim Bridger (who rode like an Indian, his long hair streaming from under his greasy slouch hat), General Dodge, General Rawlins, General Augur, General Myers, Colonel Mizner, Major Dunn, young Mr. Duff, Mr. Corwith, Mr. Van Lennep the geologist, Sol, Terry, and all.

“The yaller legs are thar,” called Jim. For the bugle had shrilled again, from the two companies now out of sight; and the heavy reports of the cavalry carbines joined with the other battle sounds.

“Right front into line!” The cavalry escort spread into company front; but as they charged into sight of the field, the gun-shots had become fitful and scattered. From the last little rise they saw what had occurred.

Down in the flat, before, a number of hooded wagons had partially corralled, or formed a circle—the horses still hitched. Beyond, a portion of the cavalry were pursuing some fleeing Indians; and the rest of the cavalry were rounding up and catching a quantity of loose horses and cattle.

Doctor Terry was busy, passing among the wagons, occasionally stopping here and there.

“Pshaw! We’re too late,” panted Mr. Duff, as everybody slackened pace. “What is it—emigrant train?”

“No. A grading outfit coming in to the road,” answered General Dodge. “Who were the Indians, major? Cheyennes, I judge.”

“Sioux, too, I reckon,” replied Jim Bridger. “A passel o’ Dog Soldiers, like as not.”

“Cavalry made ’em run. They can’t stand the cavalry,” exulted Mr. Corwith.

“Aw, sho’, now!” grunted Jim. “Pony soldiers don’t worry ’em none. It’s the walk-a-heap soldiers that set ’em to thinkin’. They know the walk-a-heaps have got to fight or be killed—can’t run off.”

“They certainly made a bold attempt, to attack like this within a mile of a military camp,” General Rawlins remarked.

“That’s their style of fighting, general,” replied General Augur. “When you don’t see them and don’t expect them, there they are.”

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. We’re simply having to fight our way through, and every mile is stained with blood. It was only six miles east of Cheyenne that poor Hills, one of my best chief assistant engineers, was killed.”

Their wounded having been attended to by Dr. Terry, the Mormon graders sent a delegation to the division site, where the two dead were to be buried.

“We start that thar town with a graveyard,” Jim Bridger grimly announced. “An’ they ain’t the last who’ll be buried thar with their boots on.”

The sturdy Mormon graders were given a small escort of the cavalry, to guard them on their farther journey. They reported that the Indians were very bad, along the trail west.

“We’ll camp here another day, and spend the Fourth,” General Dodge said, this night. “I think it will be only fitting for General Rawlins, who represents the commander of the United States Army, to make the Independence address, as Orator of the Day.”

“I’ll do it with pleasure, sir,” agreed General Rawlins.

Two other surveying parties, under Assistant Engineers Maxwell and O’Neill, joined the camp. The next day General Rawlins delivered a splendid patriotic speech, to the paraded cavalry, the wagon train and the railroad men—here, July 4, 1867, on the site of the future city of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

After that there was a split-up. Mr. Maxwell and Mr. O’Neill and their surveyors were set at work completing the survey lines from the east into Cheyenne, so as to have it ready for the graders from Julesburg. When they had done this, they were to finish the surveying of the town lots of new Cheyenne.

General Augur and his escort rode for Fort Laramie, northward. General Myers went back to end o’ track, for Fort McPherson near North Platte, in order to attend to his quartermaster’s department.

Geologist Van Lennep prepared to scout southward, and locate coal-fields. Coal-fields and building stone and minerals were important on a railroad route.

Taking General Casement, the chief “builder,” and General Rawlins, the guest of honor, and Division Engineer Evans, and the government officials, and the rest, including, of course, Terry, General Dodge proceeded west.

“By the time we return through here, there’ll be a town in full blast,” promised the general.

“We’re empire builders, not railroad builders,” laughed Mr. Corwith. “As we travel on, we leave towns where we tread.”

“I feel like a Columbus, myself,” young Mr. Duff declared. “Opening a new world.”

“Well, you know what Senator Benton said, twenty years ago. He proposed that where the first railroad crossed the Rocky Mountains the Government ought to carve a big figure of Christopher Columbus out of a peak, overlooking the rails east and west.”

“Yes, and when somebody called such a line a modern Colossus of Rhodes, another senator twisted it into Colossus of Rail-Roads!”

“When do we strike the pass, general?”

“We’ll be into it when we camp tonight. But I’ll wager that none of you will know the difference.”

“What, sir?”

“There is Evans Pass, gentlemen, in plain sight. First named Lone Tree Pass, then Sherman Pass, and finally changed to Evans Pass in honor of Mr. Evans himself, who was the chief engineer in the field party that surveyed it after I had described the landmarks to him. He found it by a lone tree at the foot. You may have noticed a lone pine, a short distance back. That was our landmark.”

“I don’t see why you call it a pass, general,” ventured Mr. Corwith.

“Well, it’s a pass because it gets the railroad over the high country. Nature seems to have made it especially for a trans-continental railroad. We are following the backbone of a long ridge which extends from the plains to the top of the Black Hills. These Black Hills don’t look to be so very difficult, but their flanks are so broken by ravines and steep slopes, that the grades and fills are impossible. This ridge is a natural divide with scarcely a break, and carries the road like an inclined trestle. We rise 2,000 feet in thirty-two miles; that gives us, according to Mr. Evans’ surveys, a maximum grade of ninety feet to a mile, and the Government allows us 116 feet to a mile, at a pinch.”

“You consider this the beginning of the base of the Rocky Mountains, do you, general?” queried Mr. Blickensderfer.

“Yes, sir. In fact, the base begins at Cheyenne, as you and Mr. Carter may determine from the table of altitudes prepared by the engineers. The rise is deceptive. It’s the only bit of good luck we’ve struck. Our engineers looked for two years, to find it.”

“The Government allows you $48,000 a mile, in building over the mountains, doesn’t it?” asked General Rawlins. “And you can build here almost as fast as on the plains.”

“Faster. But the allowance is $48,000 a mile for only the first 150 miles from the base of the mountains. After that we get $32,000 a mile for the distance to the base of the California mountains. On the plains, to this point, we’ve been allowed $16,000 a mile, and that nearly beat us. We’ve had to haul our ties and iron and timbers and supplies at ruinous expense. However, here we’re close in touch with the timbered mountains and we may be enabled to float our ties down the streams to points near the grades; this red decomposed granite under foot makes perfect ballast; many of the cuts will be in soft soil; and we’ll have good coal for the engines. Cheap fuel is an important item in railroading. The next engines to be sent out from the East will be coal-burners instead of wood-burners.”

Assuredly, Terry thought, there were a number of items to be planned for, when building a railroad line.

“So,” continued the general, “at $48,000 a mile, in such a country, we may be able to save a little money for the work ahead, where we’ll get only $32,000 a mile, mountains or no mountains. The Central Pacific had easier going, at the start. They began almost at once with $48,000 a mile, in the California foothills; but as they climb, they’ve found so much blasting and tunneling and bridging necessary, that their mountain money looks about as small to them as our plains money to us. It will be nip and tuck between us.”

“We’ll get there first, just the same,” Terry blurted. He could not help it.

“Where, young man?”

“To Salt Lake, and a lot farther, too, sir!”

“Hurrah for the track-layer gang!” cheered young Mr. Duff; and they all laughed.

The climb could be felt, if not seen. The saddle-animals puffed, the four-horse and six-horse wagon-train teams tugged at the heavy wagons. The trail, marked by the few survey stakes and flags set last year by Engineer Evans, stretched on, across little ridges and flats and ravines, each higher than the preceding one. Crow Creek seemed to have sunk into a broad valley, below and behind, and the site of Cheyenne, with its two graves, had merged into an unfolding flatness. Mr. Blickensderfer, who had been sent by the President to decide upon the real base of the Rocky Mountains, could not but admit that the base was back where the engineers’ map located it.

The country before and beyond unfolded, too, little by little, and spread out in vastness. A mountain chain—mountains with snow patches on them—uplifted far and farther, high and higher. The breeze began to waft chill. The outcrops of rocks were many and curious, like witches and giants and towers.

The next afternoon the general suddenly halted the advance, scanned right and left intently, and with a word to Engineer Evans removed his slouch hat.

“Sherman Summit, gentlemen. This is the top, at 8,250 feet. Sherman Station and a water tank will be on this very spot.”

“Over already, general?”

“Down grade from here on.”

“Couldn’t you have run the road around the north end of this divide?” asked Mr. Blickensderfer.

“Yes, we could. The engineers surveyed for a line there, to strike the old Oregon Trail and the famous South Pass which had been used for many years by the emigrants. But we would lose a number of miles, and we’d miss the coal-fields. We also wished to build around the south, through Denver, but the mountains of Colorado seem to offer no easy passes.”

“This isn’t the Continental Divide, is it, general? Not the divide between the Atlantic and Pacific?”

“No. It’s a spur of the front range of the Rockies. Yonder in the west you can see the Continental Divide—a portion of it: the Medicine Bow Range of the main Rockies. From here the road descends into the Laramie Plains, and follows a wide trough or basin for perhaps 100 miles northwest, to round the Medicine Bow. After that, from the North Platte River the route is undetermined, but is being surveyed.”

“Yes, and once across the Laramie Plains you’ll carry yore water with you,” said Sol Judy, gazing ahead as, dismounted, he leaned on his long musket. “By Jinks, beyond the Plains there’s a stretch of desert country that even a bird can’t cross without packing its own supplies.”

“Which is one thing that we’ve come to look into,” General Dodge replied. “Percy Browne and his party are running a line, over in there, now. He has the division from the North Platte River west to Green River, 180 miles. The Tom Bates party are off in there, too,” the general added kindly, to Terry. “They’re working east from the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, while Browne works west from the North Platte edge of the Laramie Plains. So we’ll keep an eye out for your boy friend.”

“About like looking for a needle in a haystack,” remarked young Duff, aside, to Terry. “That all is the biggest country I ever saw.”

And big it was, as they marched down from Sherman Summit: range after range of towering mountains to south, west, and north with glimpses of immense valleys between, and the slumberous basin of the Laramie Plains below.

Engineer Evans’ survey stakes led on. He had run the line clear to the Laramie River at Fort Sanders. Superintendent Reed was an engineer, also, and had surveyed through the Wasatch Mountains and down to Salt Lake, in 1864. The talk about the country ahead was mighty interesting to Terry, and Mr. Corwith, and young Mr. Duff.

Sol Judy and others spoke well of the Laramie Plains.

“The finest hunting-country in the world, down there,” asserted Sol. “Plenty running water, buffalo, antelope, beaver, and Injuns. But t’other side—I tell you, a jack-rabbit won’t go in without a canteen, and a crow sheds tears when he bids his family good-by.”

They camped this night on the west slope of Sherman Summit, amidst more strange rock figures, of chimneys and spires and castle turrets. Then they wound on down, to refit at Fort Sanders near present Laramie City of Wyoming—— “The terminal point of the 288 miles of track that we expect to lay this year, although people say that we can’t do it,” explained General Dodge.

At Fort Sanders they received bad news.

Young Mr. Duff brought the word out to the camp, while the general and others were at the post headquarters talking with Colonel Gibbon, the commander.

“Well, the Indians have added some more graves to the survey stakes, boys,” he said.

“What?”

“Where?”

“How do you know?”

“Mr. Van Lennep told me—and I heard it at headquarters, too. Van Lennep’s been here several days, waiting for us. It’s the Percy Browne party, this time. The Sioux struck them north of here, short time ago; killed a cavalry sergeant—fine fellow—and a civilian named Stephen Clark, from Albany, New York—another fine fellow. He was a nephew of Thurlow Weed, the big New York State politician and editor. The Indians almost captured the whole camp; ran off some mules and seized a lot of supplies. Mr. Browne brought Clark’s body in here, to the fort, for burial. Then he went out again. No Indians can stop those surveyors.”

“Did you hear anything about the Mr. Bates party?” Terry asked, anxiously.

“No, I guess they’re away out, beyond reach. The soldiers say the Sioux are on a rampage, this year. Hope nobody else is killed. We’re going to travel along, just the same. The general means to find the Browne and the Bates gangs, and see about matters. We’ve got men enough to lick the reds.”

Fort Sanders was a small, lonely post, beside the Laramie River in the south end of the Laramie Plains, twenty-five miles from Sherman Summit. Colonel, or General, John Gibbon of the Thirty-sixth Infantry commanded. There was one troop, G, of the Second Cavalry, under First Lieutenant John A. Wanless.

Lieutenant Wanless and other officers paid a visit to the cavalry camp of the expedition; and when, after two or three days of resting and out-fitting, the expedition pulled out again, Lieutenant Wanless rode a half mile with his brother cavalrymen.

“Good-by and good luck,” he bade. “You clean the trail in the one direction and we’ll be watching for the engine smoke in the other.”