Opening the iron trail

“The C. P. say they can lay ten miles of track in one day and Mr. Durant has telegraphed $10,000 to say they can’t do it!”

This was the excited greeting by George Stanton, when Terry met the pay-car in the latest “roaring” town of Blue Creek, at the base of Promontory Point on the U. P. side.

Blue Creek station was not really a town; it was more of a higglety-pigglety railroad camp, but it seemed to know no law. The Home Cooking restaurant appeared to be about the only decent place there. Nevertheless, there it was, just the same, arrived in its last move on the long journey from Cheyenne, more than 500 miles. The “Heroines of the U. P.” had set out to keep near their “men folks,” and bring “home” to them whenever possible. Old 119, with Engineer Richards in the cab, was still plying back and forth, in the fore; and George’s father was expected any day, called in from the Nevada surveys.

As soon as the two companies, directed by Congress, had decided to join ends o’ tracks upon Promontory Point, all advance grading and surveying had ceased. The C. P. had graded eighty miles east from Promontory Point, or almost to Echo City; the U. P. had graded 220 miles west from Ogden, or to Humboldt Wells, and had laid eighty miles of track this way from Humboldt Wells; but there was nothing doing now. The work had all been wasted.

So the majority of the graders had been discharged. A number of them still hung around, though, waiting for the tracks to join. They helped to form the U. P. camp of Blue Creek; and on the desert over beyond the Summit they helped to form the on-coming C. P. camp.

Everybody was keen to hear if the Central had anything yet to say about the U. P. track-laying record. Time was growing short. But the Central had said little. It was reported that they had had hard luck. Iron was scarce, and in order to make up for lost hours they had laid track at night, by the light of sage-brush bonfires. Now they were out of rails, again. Their “iron-train,” as they called it, had been ditched, by a broken trestle.

The Union Pacific crept on, here to the foot of Promontory Point of the rugged Promontory Range; the meeting-place agreed upon was only nine miles up and over, and the track-layers might take things a little easy.

But the Central had braced; they had the spirit, all right, and those seven and five-eighths miles as a challenge did not bluff them.

George brought the answer.

“We’ll lay ten miles of track in one day’s stint,” was the telegraphed announcement of Superintendent Crocker.

“Ten thousand dollars that you can’t do it,” was the reply of Mr. Durant, the U. P. vice-president, from New York. “Choose your time and place and we’ll have men there to see.”

“Tin miles? Those fellers?” Pat scoffed. “Eight’s the limit o’ any gang. Haven’t we stumped ’em wid sivin an’ a bit? If they lay tin miles I’ll crawl over it on me hands an’ knees wid me nose countin’ the ties!”

“When’ll they try? Did you hear?” demanded Terry, of George.

“No. All I saw was in the Ogden paper. Expect they’ll choose the levelest place they have. You bet I’m going to be there.”

“So am I!”

“We’ll all be there,” Pat proclaimed. “For we’ll have nothin’ else to do. Wid only nine miles yet to lay we’ll all be on vacation soon; an’ if they don’t finish their tin miles, the Irish will stand ready to help ’em along to the meetin’ spot.”

“How far out are they?” asked George.

“Eighteen or twenty miles. That wreck stopped ’em.”

Up Promontory Point the U. P. rails labored, for the finish; with trestles and curves, and several switchbacks that doubled like the letter “S”—for there were grades of 110 feet to the mile, and the cuts and fills were many. Water had to be hauled in tanks, again, for cooking and drinking. In fact this finish was one of the toughest pulls in all the 1,080 miles.

On April 27, they topped the last rise. This summit of Promontory Point was a flattish plateau, dropping off at the other side into the desert. The grade led almost straight across—a mile and a half or two miles there was a collection of tents and shacks, and the men paused to stare.

“The meetin’-place? Is that yon the meetin’-place, ye say?”

“Right, me bullies,” Pat encouraged. “’Tis the ind o’ 550 miles o’ rails laid in thirteen months, b’ gorry, not countin’ the eighty that’s been wasted. So we’ll knock off ’arly, an’ tomorrow we’ll make in—an’ be frish for the nixt mornin’ when the Cintral Chinks start to lay their tin that they’re braggin’ beforehand about. Sure, that’ll lave ’em four miles yit. Like as not they’ll nade help wid their finish.”

“It’s a quare meetin’-place, where there’s nothin’ to meet,” some of the men laughed. “S’pose we tiligraph Congress, just sayin’ that th’ U. Pay.’ll kape a-goin’ an’ save th’ C. Pay. th’ bother.”

“Not much! Tin miles o’ track are they to lay in wan day, remember, wid us a-lookin’ on.”

Mr. J. H. Strobridge, the C. P. superintendent of track-construction, finally had sent word to Mr. Reed, the U. P. superintendent, that on April 29 the Central would lay their ten miles of track, from a point fourteen miles short of the meeting-place. He invited the U. P. to send witnesses—President Leland Stanford, of the Central Pacific (and ex-governor of California), and other C. P. officials would be there.

“We’ll be there, too,” had wired back Mr. Reed.

“We’ll be there,” had asserted Pat.

Before noon of April 28, the U. P. end o’ track came to a rest near the idling camp of Promontory, where a lot of ex-graders were squatted, and gamblers, eating-house keepers, liquor sellers and real-estate boomers had arrived, to await events.

One rail’s length short of the stake and flag, the track stopped—obeying orders from Mr. Reed.

Hats were flung into the air, tools went hurtling, cheers rang riotous, and George, who had hopped a ride up from Blue Creek, so as to be on hand, danced a war-dance with Terry.

“Done! Hurrah! Done!”

“Why do yez say ‘done,’ when ’tain’t done at all, at all?” reproved red-headed little Jimmie Muldoon, severely. “Do yez expec’ the ingines to walk the ties, th’ same as me horse? It won’t be done until th’ C. Pay. lay their fourteen mile—an’ Pat says that mebbe we’ll have to fall in an’ help ’em.”

“Well, we’re done, all but twenty-eight feet,” retorted George. “And if the C. P. lay their ten miles tomorrow, they’ll be about done. Four miles more is nothing. Not out of nearly 2,000. We all can pitch in and lay that in an hour. Come on, Terry, let’s figure.”

They sat down, to figure.

Union Pacific: forty miles of track laid in 1865; 260 miles in 1866; 246 miles in 1867; 425 miles in 1868, and now 125, in the four months of 1869—which made, as Pat said, 550 miles in thirteen months, not counting the sidings and switches, and the eighty miles at Humboldt Wells.

And look at the grading! From Sherman to Humboldt Wells—725 miles, in the same thirteen months.

“I reckon nobody’s going to beat that, for a while,” vaunted George, the boss figurer.

“Reckon not, boy. But the C. P. have done pretty well. While we’ve been building 1,086 miles, and that extra ‘Z’ of near ten miles more, they’ve been building something like 675, with those fourteen miles yet to go on; but they’ll match our 550 miles in thirteen months with 549, ’cording to Major Hurd. Not much difference—huh?”

“Shucks! Don’t forget our other eighty. And besides, you fellows have been sort of loafing along, lately; and now you’re sitting here waiting. You could have been past ’em and part way to Humboldt Wells, if the Government hadn’t stopped you. You’ve been bucking the mountains, too, while they’ve had the desert.”

“They had the mountains in the beginning and we had the plains,” Terry reminded. “But, anyhow, if they’ll lay ten miles of track tomorrow, I’ll take off my hat to the Chinks.”

“So’ll I,” George agreed.

“I’ll ate mine,” declared Jimmie Muldoon. “An’ I’ll ate my brother’s, too. But say: is that what your figgers show? Have we all come wid the rails 550 miles in scarce more’n wan year?”

“Sure thing, Jimmie.”

“Glory be!” sighed Jimmie. “An’ me on the back of a horse, doublin’ the distance tin times iv’ry mile! Faith, I’ll ride back on the train. An’ what’s th’ whole distance, by miles, from Omyha to this place here?”

“One thousand and eighty-six miles, Jimmie.”

Jimmie uttered an Irish whoop.

“I’ve ridden a horse around the world,” he shouted. “But wance is enough. A reg’lar cin-taur I be!”

George had leave to spend the rest of the day here. That was good. It insured his being on hand bright and early, for the great event, tomorrow.

The track-layers knocked off work. With many of them, the long job was finished. Only a few were to be needed, now, and the rest only waited for their pay, or for the joining of the tracks.

They lay around, smoking their pipes, or celebrated in the Promontory camp, or proceeded down to Blue Creek, where there was more amusement. A crew of the track ballasters proceeded to settle the ties. The boarding-train stood at ease, and the construction-train, having unloaded, pulled out for Blue Creek, itself. Jimmie Muldoon and his brother turned their rail-truck horses out to grass.

The grade stretched on, across the flat summit, westward still, and out of sight. Its ties had all been placed; it needed only the Central Pacific rails. A few Chinamen were working on it.

The summit of Promontory Point was a sort of pass over the end of Promontory Range. It was a plateau, covered with grass and sage-brush—a basin held between a high ridge north and a high ridge south. Only a glimpse of the shining Salt Lake might be seen. But by climbing the south ridge, a fellow got a fine view.

From here, all the mighty lake lay outspread, below, fringed by its mountains and broken by its islands—one could see the smoke of Ogden, thirty or so miles in air-line although fifty-two by track, and even of Salt Lake City, farther southeastward. And where the grade westward dipped down from the plateau, into the sagy desert, could be sighted the construction camp of the Central Pacific people, fourteen miles away.

“There’s a big crowd of ’em, all right,” Terry remarked.

“It’ll take a big crowd to bring up the stuff for ten miles of track at once, and have iron and everything ready.”

“Well,” mused Terry, “maybe they’ll do it and maybe they won’t; but I wish our men could have a try.”

When they went down to camp, General Dodge and General Casement were inspecting the ground in company with two visitors. One of these was a fine-looking, trimmed-beard man in black broad-cloth (somewhat dusty) and black soft hat with wide brim.

“That’s the Honorable Leland Stanford, ex-governor of California—the Central’s president, and a powerful smart man,” said the report in the U. P. camp.

The other was an energetic, heavy-set man, with masterful gray-blue eyes, a determined mouth, and face smooth-shaven except for a thick moustache.

He was Mr. Charles Crocker, the Central’s road-builder—the man who had hustled the work while Governor Stanford in the West and Mr. Huntington, the vice-president, in the East, managed the money end.

The two Central officials started to ride back to their own line.

“By this time tomorrow, gentlemen, we’ll be nearing the end of our ten miles,” Governor Stanford bantered, on parting, as they turned their horses.

“You have our best wishes; you can’t come on any too fast, for us—but we’ll be here to check up on you,” laughed General Dodge.

He and General Casement passed near Terry and George, who, like the other men, respectfully saluted. General Dodge checked his horse.

“What do you boys think of this ten-mile-in-a-day proposition?” he queried, with a twinkle in his tired eyes. “How about it, Terry? You’ve watched our Paddies for 800 miles, and General Casement says they can beat the world.”

“If the Central can lay ten miles, our men can lay eleven, sir,” Terry stoutly replied.

“Thank Heaven, they won’t have to,” rapped General Casement. “But I’ll wager that they could, myself.”

This evening, and into the night, the bonfires of sage-brush built by the U. P. camp were answered by the distant glow of the bonfires built by the C. P. camp. The two camps were like the camps of two armies waiting for a test of strength on the morrow.