BOOKS BY EDWIN L. SABIN

Wild Men of the Wild West

“Old” Jim Bridger on the Moccasin Trail

Pluck on the Long Trail; or, Boy Scouts in the Rockies

GREAT WEST SERIES

“The Great Pike’s Peak Rush”; or, Terry in the New Gold Fields

On the Overland Stage; or, Terry as a King Whip Cub

Opening the Iron Trail

RANGE AND TRAIL SERIES

Bar B Boys; or, The Young Cow-Punchers

Range and Trail; or, the Bar B’s Great Drive

Old Four-Toes; or, Hunters of the Peaks

Treasure Mountain; or, The Young Prospectors

Scarface Ranch; or, The Young Homesteaders

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
NEW YORK

Frontis.

THE WEDDING OF THE RAILS

OPENING THE IRON TRAIL

OR

TERRY AS A “U. PAY.” MAN
(A Semi-Centennial Story)

BY
EDWIN L. SABIN
AUTHOR OF “THE BOY SETTLER,” “THE GREAT PIKES
PEAK RUSH,” “ON THE OVERLAND STAGE,” ETC.

“Drill, my paddies, drill!

Drill, you tarriers, drill!

Oh, it’s work all day,

No sugar in your tay—

Wor-rkin’ on th’ U. Pay. Ra-a-ailway!”

Song of the “U. Pay.” Men

NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1919, by
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
Fourth Printing
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE READER

It is fifty years ago, this year 1919, that the first of the iron trails across the United States, between the East and the West, was finally completed. At noon of May 10, 1869, the last four rails in the new Pacific Railway were laid, and upon Promontory Point, Utah, about fifty miles westward from Ogden, the locomotive of the Union Pacific and the locomotive of the Central Pacific touched noses. That was indeed a great event.

The Union Pacific, coming from Omaha at the Missouri River, had built over one thousand miles of track in three years; the Central Pacific, coming from Sacramento at the Pacific Ocean, had built over six hundred miles in the same space. Altogether, in seven years there had been built one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five miles of main track, and the side-tracks, stations, water-tanks, and so forth.

In one year the Union Pacific had laid four hundred and twenty-five miles of track; in the same year the Central Pacific had laid three hundred and sixty-three miles. In one day the Union Pacific had laid seven and three-quarters miles; in one day the Central Pacific had laid a full ten miles. These records have never been beaten.

The whole thing was a feat equaled again only when America speeded up in the war against Germany; for when they once get started, Americans astonish the world.

Twenty-five thousand men, including boys, were working at one time, on the twain roads. This book tells of the experiences of Terry Richards and George Stanton, who were two out of the twenty-five thousand; and of their friends.

The Author.

AT THE UNION PACIFIC END

General Grant, General Sherman, U. P. Vice-President Thomas C. Durant, Director Sidney Dillon, and other distinguished visitors; Major Marshall Hurd, John Evans, Tom Bates, Francis Appleton, and other daring survey engineers; General John A. Rawlins, young Mr. Duff, Mr. John Corwith, tourists; Mr. David Van Lennep, geologist; Sol Judy and old Jim Bridger, scouts; Chief Petalesharo’s Pawnees; United States soldiers; the Irish “tarriers” who built the road; Jack Slade’s “roaring town” toughs; and bad Injuns.

AT THE CENTRAL PACIFIC END

Mike Shay, Pat Joyce, Tom Dailey, Mike Kennedy, Fred McNamara, Ed Killeen, George Wyatt, Mike Sullivan, the ten-miles-a-day “cracks”; and the 10,000 Chinks who saved the Central.

Time and Place: 1867-1869, upon the great plains, through the deserts and over the mountains, during the famous railroad-building race to cross the continent.

CONTENTS

OPENING THE IRON TRAIL

CHAPTER I
TERRY RICHARDS ON THE JOB

“Drill, my paddies, drill!

Drill, you tarriers, drill!

O, it’s work all day,

No sugar in your tay—

Wor-rkin’ on th’ U. Pay. Ra-a-ailway!”

The rousing chant rang gaily upon the thin air of Western spring. Sitting Jenny, the old yellow mule, for a moment’s breather while the load of rails was being swept from his flat-car truck, Terry Richards had to smile.

Nobody knew who invented that song. Some said Paddy Miles, the track-laying boss—and it did sound like Pat. At any rate, the lines had made a hit, until already their words were echoing from the Omaha yards, the beginning of track, past end o’ track and on through the grading-camps clear to the mountains where the surveying parties were spying out the trail, for this new Union Pacific Railroad across continent.

Time, early in May, 1867. Place, end o’ track, on the Great Plains just north of the Platte River, between North Platte Station of west central Nebraska and Julesburg, the old Overland Stage Station, of northeastern Colorado. Scene, track-laying—a bevy of sweaty, flannel-shirted, cowhide-booted men working like beavers, but with spades, picks, sledges, wrenches and hands, while far before were the graders, keeping ahead, and behind were the boarding-train and the construction-train, puffing back and forth.

Aye, this was a bustling scene, here where a few weeks ago there had been open country traveled by only the emigrant wagons, the stages and the Indians.

And yonder, farther than the graders and out of sight in the northwest, there were still more workers on the big job: the location surveyors, the path-finding surveyors, the—but Terry’s breather was cut short.

“All right!” yelped the command, from the front.

Terry’s empty truck was tipped sideways from the single track. A second little flat-car, hauled by a galloping white horse ridden by small red-headed Jimmie Muldoon, passed full speed, bound to the fray with more rails. Terry’s own car was tipped back upon the track again, one-legged Dennis, its “conductor,” hopped aboard, to the brakes, and uttering a whoop Terry started, to get another load, himself.

Old Jenny headed down track, by the path that she had worn; the fifty feet of rope tautened; with the truck rumbling after and Shep, Terry’s shaggy black dog, romping alongside, they tore for the fresh supplies. Sitting bareback, Terry rode like an Indian.

At the waiting pile of rails dumped from the construction-train he swerved Jenny out, and halted. The light flat-car rolled on until Dennis (who had been crippled in the war) stopped it with the brake. Instantly the rail-slingers there began to load it. And presently Terry was launched once more for end o’ track, with his cargo of forty rails to be placed, lightning quick, upon the ties.

Jimmie’s emptied truck was tipped aside, to give clearance. Then Jimmie pelted rearward, for iron ammunition, and Terry had another breather.

That was a great system by which at the rate of a mile and a half to two miles and a half and sometimes three miles a day the rails for the Iron Horse were being laid to the land of the setting sun.

Beyond end o’ track the graded roadbed stretched straight into the west as far as eye could see, with a graders’ camp of sodded dug-outs and dingy tents breaking the distance. At the tapering-off place the ploughs and scrapers were busy, building the roadbed. Next there came the shovel and pick squads, leveling the roadbed. Next, between end o’ track and shovel squads, there were the tie-layers—seizing the ties from the piles, throwing them upon the roadbed, tamping them and straightening them and constantly asking for more, while six-horse and six-mule wagons toiled up and down, hauling all kinds of material to the “front.”

Already the row of ties laid yesterday and this very morning extended like a rippling stream for three miles, inviting the rails.

At end o’ track itself there were the track-builders—the rail-layers, the gaugers, the spikers, the bolters, the ballasters. And upon the new track there were the boarding-train and the construction-train.

The boarding-train, for the track-gang, held the advance. It was a long train of box-cars fitted up with bunks and dining tables and kitchen—with hammocks slung underneath to the cross-rods and beds made up on top, for the over-flow; and with one car used as an office by General “Jack” Casement and his brother, Dan Casement, who were building the road for the U. P.

The construction-train of flat-cars and caboose plied back and forth between end o’ track and the last supply depot, twenty miles back. These supply depots, linked by construction-trains, were located every twenty miles, on the plains beside the track, back to North Platte, the supply base.

From its depot the train for end o’ track brought up rails, ties, spikes, fish-plate joints—everything. It backed in until its caboose almost touched the rear car of the boarding-train. Overboard went the loads from the flat-cars; with a shrill whistle, away for another outfit of track stuff puffed the construction-train; with answering whistle the boarding-train (Terry’s father at the throttle) followed, a short distance, to clear the path for the rail-trucks.

The rail-truck, Terry’s or Jimmie Muldoon’s, according to whose turn, loaded at the farthest pile. Then up track it scampered, to the very end, where two lines of track-layers, five on a side, were waiting. Each squad grabbed a rail, man after man, and hustled it forward at a run; dropped it so skillfully that the rear end fell into the last fish-plate. They forced the end down, and held the rail straight.

“Down!” signaled the squad bosses. The gaugers had measured the width between the pair of rails: four feet eight and one-half inches. The spikers and bolters sprang with spikes and bolts and sledges. “Whang! Whang! Whangity-whang!” pealed the sledges—a rhythmic chorus. By the time that the first spikes had been driven two more rails were in position. Now and again the little car was shoved forward a few yards, on the new track, to keep up with the work.

A pair of rails were laid—“Down! Down!”—every thirty seconds! Two hundred pairs of rails were reckoned to the mile; there were ten spikes to each rail, three sledge blows to each spike. A pair of rails were laid and spiked fast every minute, which meant a mile of track in three hours and a third—or say three and a half. In fifteen minutes the fish-plate joints had been bolted and everything made taut.

It was a clock-work job, at top speed, with maybe 1,000 miles yet to go in this race to beat the Central Pacific.

The Central Pacific was the road being built eastward from Sacramento of California. The Government had ordered the Union Pacific to meet it and join end o’ track with it, somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains. That would make a railroad clear across continent between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean!

The Union Pacific had much the longer trail: 1,000 miles across the plains and the Rockies and as much farther as it could get. The Central Pacific had started in to build only about 150 miles, and then as much farther as it could get, east from the California border.

The C. P. had commenced first. By the time the U. P. had built eleven miles of track, the C. P. had completed over fifty. But while the Central was completing 100 miles, the Union Pacific had completed 300.

Now the Central was still fighting the snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California, and the U. P. had open going on the plains. The C. P. had plenty of timber for ties and culverts and bridges, and plenty of cheap Chinese labor; the U. P. had no timber, all its ties were cut up and down the Missouri River or as far east as Wisconsin, and hauled to end o’ track from Omaha, and by the time that they were laid they cost two dollars apiece. Its workmen were mainly Irish, gathered from everywhere and pretty hard to manage.

The C. P. began at Sacramento on the Sacramento River, up from San Francisco, but its rails and locomotives had to be shipped clear around Cape Horn, from the Pennsylvania factories—or else across the Isthmus of Panama. The U. P. began at Omaha, on the Missouri River, but Omaha was 100 miles from any eastern railroad and all the iron and other supplies had to be shipped by steamboat up from St. Louis or by wagon from central Iowa.

It was nip and tuck. Just the same, General G. M. Dodge, the Union Pacific chief engineer (and a mighty fine man), was bound to reach Salt Lake of Utah first, where big business from the Mormons only waited for a railroad. This year he had set out to build 288 more miles of track between April 1 and November 1. That would take the U. P. to the Black Hills of the Rocky Mountains. The C. P. had still forty miles to go, before it was out of its mountains and down into the Nevada desert; and this looked like a year’s work, also.

Then the U. P. would be tackling the mountains, while the C. P. had the desert, with Salt Lake as the prize for both.

But 288 miles, this year, against the Central’s forty! Phew! No matter. General Dodge was the man to do it, and the U. P. gangs believed that they could beat the C. P. gangs to a frazzle.

“B’ gorry, ’tis the Paddies ag’in the Chinks, it is?” growled Pat Miles, the track-laying boss. “Ould Ireland foriver! Shall the like of us let a lot o’ pig-tailed, rice-’atin’ haythen wid shovels an’ picks hoist the yaller above the grane? Niver! Not whilst we have a man who can spit on his hands. Away yonder on that desert over ferninst Californy won’t there be a shindig, though, when the shillaly meets the chop-stick! For ’tis not at Salt Lake we’ll stop; we’ll kape right on into Nevady, glory be!”

So——

“Drill, my paddies, drill!

Drill, you tarriers, drill!

O, it’s work all day,

No sugar in your tay—

Wor-rkin’ on th’ U. Pay. Ra-a-ailway!”

And—“Down! Down!” “Whang! Whang! Whangity-whang!”

The track-laying and the grading gangs were red-shirted, blue-shirted, gray-shirted; with trousers tucked into heavy boots—and many of the trousers were the army blue. For though the men were mainly Irish, they were Americans and two-thirds had fought in the Union armies during the Civil War. Some also had fought in the Confederate armies.

There were ex-sergeants, ex-corporals, and ex-privates by the scores, working shoulder to shoulder. In fact, the whole U. P. corps was like an army corps. Chief Engineer Dodge had been a major-general in the East and on the Plains; Chief Contractor “Jack” Casement had been brigadier general; about all the way-up men had been generals, colonels, majors, what-not; while the workers under them were ready at a moment to drop picks and shovels and sledges and transits, and grabbing guns “fall in” as regular soldiers.

This meant a great deal, when the Indians were fighting the road. This past winter the engineers doing advance survey work had been told by Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux that they must get out and stay out of the country—but there they were there again. Nobody could bluff those surveyors: fellows like “Major” Marshall Hurd who had served as a private of engineers through the war, and Tom Bates, and young Percy Browne, and their parties.

All the survey parties—some of them 500 miles in the lead—moved and worked, carrying guns; the graders’ camps were little forts; the track-builders marched to their jobs, and stacked their rifles while they plied their tools. At night the guns were arranged in racks in the boarding-cars, to be handy. The construction-trains’ cabooses were padded with sand between double walls, and loop-holed, and even the passenger trains were supplied with rifles and revolvers, in cars and cabs. General Dodge called his private car, in which he shuttled up and down the line, his “traveling arsenal.”

This was the arrangement, from the end o’ track back to beginning, 360 miles, and on ahead to the last survey camp. The Central Pacific was not having such trouble.

“An’ lucky for it, too,” as said Paddy Miles. “For betwixt the yaller an’ the red, sure I’d bet on the red. Wan Injun could lick all the Chinymen on this side the Paycific. But there’s niver an Injun who can lick an Irishman, b’ gosh!”

However, today everything seemed peaceful. Usually a detachment of soldiers, or a company of the Pawnee Indian scouts under Major Frank M. North, their white-scout commander, were camped near by, guarding the track-laying. But the soldiers were elsewhere, on a short cross-country trip, and the Pawnees (Company A) were up at Fort Sedgwick, near old Julesburg, fifteen or twenty miles west.

The air was very clear. The graders working on the roadbed five miles away might be seen. The long trains of huge wagons, hauling supplies, wended slowly out to refit them. On this section there were 100 teams and 2,000 men, scattered along; on the next section there were another thousand men, doing the first grading according to the stakes set by the engineers. And eastward there were the trains and the stations, all manned, and other gangs fixing the rough places in the track.

Of all this Terry felt himself to be rather a small part—just riding old Jenny back and forth, with the little rail-truck, while his father imitated with the engine of the boarding-train. Of course, his father had a bad knee (which the war had made worse), and driving an engine was important; but he himself envied his chum, George Stanton. George was out with his father on railroad survey under Mr. Tom Bates—probably fighting Injuns and shooting buffalo and bear, too. That also was man’s work, while riding an old yellow mule over the track was boy’s work.

Every truck-load of forty rails carried the track forward about 560 feet. To that steady “Down! Down!” and “Whangity-whang!” end o’ track reached out farther and farther from the piles of iron thrown off by the construction-train, and from the boarding-train that waited for the construction-train to back in with another supply.

So while cleaning up the piles, Terry and little Jimmie Muldoon had to travel farther and farther with their loads. Then in due time the construction-train would come puffing up, the boarding-train, with Terry’s father leaning from the cab, would move on as close to end o’ track as it dared, the construction-train would follow and with a great noise dump its cargo of jangling iron, and retreat again; the boarding-train would back out, to clear the track for the trucks; and Terry and Jimmie would start in on short hauls, for a spell.

The supply of iron at the last dump was almost exhausted. The construction-train was hurrying in, with more. Engine Driver Ralph Richards and his stoker, Bill Sweeny, were climbing lazily into the cab of old No. 119, ready to pull on up as soon as Jimmie Muldoon’s truck left with the final load. Terry had his eye upon the track, to see it emptied——

“Drill, my paddies, drill!

Drill, you tarriers, drill!

O, it’s work all day,

No sug——”

Hark! A sudden spatter of shots sounded—a series of shouts and whoops—the whistle of the boarding-train was wide open—up the grade the graders were diving to cover like frightened prairie-dogs—and out from the sandhills not a quarter of a mile to the right there boiled a bevy of wild horsemen, charging full tilt to join with another bevy who tore down diagonally past the graders themselves.

Sioux? Or Cheyennes? The war had begun, for 1867!

CHAPTER II
A LITTLE INTERRUPTION

The Indians had chosen exactly the right time, for them. They had awaited the moment when the main body of track-layers were farthest separated from the boarding-train and the stacks of arms; they had seen that there were no soldiers on guard; and here they came, with a rush, at least 500 of them.

“Fall in, men! Lay down! Down wid yez!”

Terry tumbled off his yellow mule in a jiffy. Dropping spade and sledge, ducking and lunging, the men were scurrying along the roadbed, seeking shelter. Only the squad of tampers and ballasters following end o’ track to settle the ties were near the first gun stacks; Terry joined their flat line. The Springfield carbines were passed rapidly, but there were not enough.

“Stiddy, boys!” bawled Pat. He had been a top sergeant in the regular army before the war. “Hug the ground. The word from headquarters is ‘Niver retrate.’ Sure, if we haven’t guns we can foight wid picks. Wait for orders, now.”

Down dashed the Indians, at reckless speed: one party straight from the north, one party obliquing from the west. The engines of both trains were shrieking furiously. All up the grade the wagons were bunching, at a gallop, with military precision; the laborers were rushing in squads to corral in them and in the low dug-outs beside the roadbed.

The party of Indians from the westward split; one half veered in, and racing back and forth there, pelted the road embankment with a storm of bullets and arrows. The graders replied, but it was hard to land on those weaving, scudding figures.

The other half of the party tore on, heading to unite with the second party and cut off the boarding-train. That was it! The Indians wanted the boarding-train and supplies.

Hurrah! The boarding-train was coming on, regardless. It was manned by only Engine Driver Richards and Fireman Sweeny, a brakeman and the cooks; but no matter. Like a great demon it was coming on, whistling long shrieks and belching pitchy smoke.

The Sioux (some Cheyennes, too) were close upon it. They began to race it, whooping and shooting. The windows of dining-car and caboose replied with jets of white, as the cook and the brakeman bravely defended. Stoker Bill shot from his side of the cab. The train gathered way slowly; the ponies easily kept up with it—their riders, swerving in, flung themselves free of the saddles, clung to the steps and ladders and vaulted the couplings; clung like ants and dragged and writhed, as if they could hold it back!

They charged the engine; even cast their ropes at the smoke-stack; swarmed to the tender and from there shot into the cab. Terry’s heart welled into his mouth, with fear for his father. Suddenly there was a great gush of white steam—Engineer Richards had opened the cylinder cocks, and the cloud of scalding vapor surged back, sweeping the tender. Out popped sprawly brown figures, to land head over heels upon the right-of-way, and blindly scramble for safety.

Hurrah! Bully for Engineer Richards! And the construction-train was coming too. No! Look at it! From Terry’s neighbors a groan of disgust issued.

“The dirty cowards! Bad cess to ’em! Turnin’ tail, they are!”

For the construction-train was standing still, on the track, and the engine was making off, back across the wide plains, leaving a trail of smoke and a good-by shriek.

“Niver mind! We’ve a train of our own. Yis, an’ hearts to match it.”

“’Tis all right, boys. He’s only goin’ to the tiligraph,” Pat shouted. “It’s word to the troops at Sidgwick he has up his sleeve. The Pawnees’ll be wid us in a jiffy—an’ then watch them red rascals skedaddle. ’Asy, ’asy,” continued Pat, “till the train’s widin reach of us. Stiddy. We mustn’t get scattered, like.”

The boarding-train was jolting and swaying on the newly laid rails; but what ailed it, besides? Aha!

“Settin’ the brakes! Settin’ the brakes, they are!”

And sure enough. These Cheyennes and Sioux were wise. For a year and a half they had been watching the white man’s iron horses and big thunder wagons advancing onward into the buffalo country; and they had learned a number of new wrinkles. They 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.

“Sharp-shooters give it to ’em!” Pat yelped. The carbines of the track-layer gang banged hopefully.

The Indians ducked and swung off to the farther side. The brakeman was out of the caboose. He lay flat upon one end of the train, the fireman lay flat upon the other end; and hitching along they began to kick the brakes free. The galloping Indians peppered at them, but failed to hit them.

“Be ready, lads,” Pat ordered. “Skirmishes wid the guns, first. The rist of us wid the picks. We’ll run for it, and meet the train. Jist a minute, now.” And—“Oh, the divils!” he added. “Charge!”

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 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 line of skirmishers, carbines poised, charged—charged in splendid order, like soldiers, aiming, firing, running. With picks and sledges and even spades the other men also charged, behind the skirmishers; bending low and shouting, yes, laughing in their excitement.

“The tie! Look out for the tie on the track!” they hallooed.

Terry had nothing to carry, and he was fast on his feet. Never had he sprinted so, before. The first thing he knew, he was through the skirmishers and legging on by himself, while the bullets hummed by him and every instant the distance between tie and truck was lessening. All his eyes and thoughts were on that tie. If the engine—his father’s engine—rammed it with the rail-loaded truck—wow!

He lost his hat—he heard whoops and shouts and excited Shep’s wild barking—the Indians on his side were swerving off, before the carbine bullets—but the engine was thundering down upon him, he saw his father’s astonished grimy face peering from the cab and he glimpsed the cars behind spewing naked figures. Then he dived for the tie. He barely had time to lift one end when the truck struck the tie, hurled it to the left and him to the right; but they both fell clear, for as he picked himself up the box-cars were rumbling by, jerking to the sharply braked engine.

All was hurly-burly with the Indians scooting and screeching, the men scrambling and cheering, catching at the steps and braces, running alongside until the train stopped, and clutching the guns passed out from doors and windows.

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. He arrived at the tender, and had to come out.

“Get in here! Quick!” It was his father, sighting him. Terry hoisted himself into the engine, while several bullets rang upon the metal grasped by his hands. He lurched to the fireman’s seat and huddled there, to gain breath and grin. With a running leap Shep followed, to curl close in a corner, safe, he believed, from all that racket.

“Well, where were you going?” his father demanded.

“Just looking for a good place,” Terry panted.

“You’ve found it, and you’d better stick. ’Tisn’t healthy, outside. What were you doing on the track ahead of me? Didn’t I hit something?”

“A tie, dad. They’d laid a tie across the track.”

“Oho! Good for you. But you took a big chance. Did you reach it?”

“I got one end up.”

“If I’d hit it plumb, reckon some of those rails would have been driven into the boiler. I couldn’t see plain, on account the steam and the truck. The crooked stack bothered me, too. Anyhow, here’s one train they don’t capture.”

“They can’t take it, can they, dad?”

“Not on your life, Terry. Not while there’s a cartridge for a gun or an Irishman to swing a pick, or an ounce of steam in the boiler of old 119. If worst comes to worst we can run back and forth, ’twixt here and that construction-train.”

Terry jumped down and crawled to peek out between engine and tender.

“No, we can’t, dad. They’re piling ties on the track ’way behind!”

“I declare! They’re too smart. They even set the brakes on me, and tried to rope the engine stack, like they would a horse’s neck! So they think they have us corralled, do they?”

That was so. 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.

Part of the Indians dashed around and around in a great circle, whooping gleefully and shooting at long distance. “Blamed if they haven’t got better guns than we have,” remarked Terry’s father, as now and then a bullet pinged viciously against the boiler-iron of engine or tank. Others, dismounted, crept steadily forward, like snakes, firing from little hollows and clumps of brush.

The Paddy Miles sharp-shooters, snug beneath the cars, and protected by the rails and the car-wheels, stanchly replied. The heavy Springfield balls kicked up long spurts of sand and ’dobe dust; once in a while a pony rider darted in, for closer shot—sometimes he got away with it, and sometimes his horse lunged headlong, to lie floundering while the rider himself ran hunched, for shelter. Then the men cheered and volleyed at him; maybe bowled him over, but not always.

Terry’s father had lighted his pipe; and there he sat, on his seat, with his gun poked out of the window, to get a shot when he might. He was as cool as a cucumber, and ready for any kind of business. This was not his first scrape, by any means. He had been a gold-seeker in the rush of Fifty-nine, to the Pike’s Peak diggin’s of Colorado; and he had served in the Union Army of the Civil War. Only his crippled knee had put him into the cab—but brave men were needed here, the same as elsewhere, these days.

“Where did the other engine go, dad?” Terry asked.

“To the nearest wire. There’s a spur station and operator ten miles back, you know. Sedgwick has the word, by now; and so has North Platte. Pretty soon we’ll see the Pawnees coming from the one direction and the general himself from the other; and that’ll put an end to this fracas.”

Terry exclaimed.

“They’re shooting fire arrows!”

Cleverly worming along, several of the Indians had posted themselves near enough to use their bows. They launched arrow after arrow, with bunches of flaming dried grass and greasy rags—yes, as like as not old waste—tied to the heads; and these plumped into car top and car side.

“The confounded rascals!” growled Engineer Richards.

Fireman Bill Sweeny hurdled from the first car down to the tender. He was sweat-streaked and grim, and bleeding at the shoulder. He grabbed a bucket, soused it into the tank, and away he staggered.

“Train’s afire, Ralph,” he yelled back. “Don’t shove out——” and he was gone.

Forward bustled other men, with buckets; dipped into the tank and sped for the rear again. Matters were getting serious. The Springfields seemed unable to ferret out the bow-wielders. There was a cheer, and Pat Miles led a charge. Out from beneath the cars there rushed a line of skirmishers, while behind them the carbines barked, supporting them. Up from their coverts sprang the fire-arrow Indians, and bolted. Giving them a volley the skirmish dropped and dug in.

A line was thrown out on the other side of the train, also. This made the Indians furious; their horsemen raced madly up and down, showing only an arm and a leg, or suddenly firing from the saddle and hanging low again. At the best they were difficult marks. They had plenty of ammunition, and rifles that outranged the stubby carbines.

“Fire’s squelched except the last car; that’s a-burnin’,” gasped Stoker Bill, lurching in and sinking breathless upon his seat. “Don’t back up. Say, kid, help me tie this shoulder, will you?”

“Hurt bad, Bill?” Engineer Richards queried, keenly.

“Nope. Just perforated a trifle.”

“Anybody else hurt?”

“None particular. But I sure thought this kid was a goner, though. Did you see him?”

“Where?”

“When he reached for that tie?”

“Didn’t see him or the tie either, till too late. I knew I hit something.”

“Well, I happened to be squinting up this way, and I saw him just as he heaved an end clear of the track. Next thing, you sent him one way and the tie the other. He’s an all-right boy.”

“Guess he is,” laughed Terry’s father. “He’ll get promoted off that old yellow mule, first thing we know.”

“Wish General Dodge would let me go out on a survey,” Terry blurted. “Like George Stanton.”

“I’ll speak to the general about it,” said Fireman Bill, with a wink at his cab partner.

But Engineer Richards did not notice. He was peering behind, out of his window.

“Hi! Here comes the other engine,” he uttered. “Yes, and the headquarters car for a trailer! The old man (that was Major-General Dodge, of course) is inside it, I’ll bet a hat!”

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. Out from the headquarters car issued man after man—springing to the ground, guns in their hands, until they numbered some twenty.

The first was a straight, well-knit figure in broad-brimmed black slouch hat and ordinary civilian clothes. There appeared to be two or three men in regular city clothes with him; the rest were dressed more rough and ready, like trainmen and workmen.

The Indians were circling and yelling and shooting, at long distance. The slouch hat led forward at a run. From the construction-train the handful of train crew leaped out; they had been housed, waiting, on defense, but helpless to do much. All ran forward. The slouch hat man pointed and gave orders; the train crew jumped at the pile of ties, while the other men rapidly deployed, in accurate line—advancing as if in uniform, and yielding not an inch.

The ties were scattered in a twinkling; the engine pushed—the train moved slowly up track, with the slouch hat’s men clearing either side of the track, at a trot, fire, and trot again. The train crew closed the rear. The engine whistled triumphantly; Terry’s father yanked the whistle cord of No. 119, and by blast after blast welcomed the new-comers.

In spite of the frantic Indians the trains joined. But the fighting was not over. It had only been extended into a longer line. Terry could stay quiet no more. He simply had to be out into the midst of things. With General Dodge, the chief engineer and noted army man, on deck, there would be a change of program.

“I’m going, dad,” he announced. Not waiting for answer, out he tumbled, so quickly that Shep did not know it. For Shep was sound asleep.

CHAPTER III
“TRACK’S CLEAR”

The few carbine barrels jutting here and there from behind the car-wheels were silent, as hugging the side of the train Terry boldly stepped over them; the skirmish lines were doing the shooting. Half way down the train a knot of men were holding a council.

They were Chief Engineer Dodge (the figure in the black slouch hat) and three men in city clothes, and Pat Miles. But before Terry might steal nearer, fresh cheers arose.

“The Pawnees! Here they come! Hooray for the Pawnees!”

The men underneath the cars began to squirm out, and stand, to yell. Over a swale up the graded right-of-way there appeared a mounted force—looked like soldiers—cavalry—one company, two companies, deploying in broad front; and how they did come!

The graders yonder were waving hats, and cheering; the Cheyennes and Sioux hemming them in dug their heels into their ponies and bending low fled before the charge. The General Dodge council had moved out a few paces, to watch. The general swung his hat, also.

“Now for it!” he shouted. “Form your men, Pat. Blair, you wanted to see some fighting. Take one company and advance to the left. Simpson, you take another detachment and advance to the right. White, you and I and Pat will guard the train with the train crews and the reserve. We’ll put those rascals between two fires.”

“Fall in! Fall in wid yez!” Pat bawled, running. The words were repeated. “Yez’ve thray gin’rals, a major an’ meself to lead yez,” bawled Pat.

“Come on, men,” cried the general named Blair, to his detachment; he climbed through between the cars; his men followed him and away they went, in extended order, picking up the skirmishers as they proceeded.

In the other direction ran General Simpson’s detachment, and out across the plain. But the Indians did not stand. With answering yells they scattered, and occasionally firing backward at the Pawnees they scoured away—the Pawnees, separating into their two companies, pursuing madly.

And a funny sight it was, too; for as the Pawnees rode, they kept throwing off their uniforms, until pretty soon they were riding in only their trousers.

“B’ gorry!” Pat panted, as he and the general halted near Terry. “The only thing I have ag’in them Pawnees is, that when they come there’s nothin’ left for the Irish.” He turned on the general, and saluted—coming to a carry arms, with his left arm stiffly across his red-shirted chest. “Track’s clear, gin’ral.”

“So it seems,” laughed General Dodge. “Simpson and Blair might as well come in. Now let’s see what the damage is.” His sharp eyes fell on Terry, standing fascinated. “What’s this boy doing out here? He ought to be under cover.”

“Sure, he’s bigger’n he looks,” apologized Pat. “If ye could have seen him lift at a tie when the engine was jest onto it——! He earned a brevet—but I thought he was under the wheels entoirely.”

“That’s the kind of work that counts—but I’ll have to hear about it later,” answered the general. “Now let’s check up the damage, and get the men out again. Where’s General Casement?”

“He’s on up at Julesburg, sorr; him and Mr. Reed, too. But I’m thinkin’ they’ll both be back in a jiffy.”

General “Jack” Casement was the chief contractor—the head boss of the whole construction. Mr. S. B. Reed was the general superintendent of building. Yes, they doubtless would arrive on the jump.

The two companies of the construction gang were brought in, for the Pawnees had chased the Sioux and Cheyennes out of sight. Before they came in, themselves, General Dodge and Foreman Pat had made their inspection. Three men badly wounded, here; several slightly wounded; one car burned, other cars, and the engine, riddled and scarred.

But within half an hour all the unhurt men had stacked their guns, had resumed their tools, and were out on the grade, ready to start in, just as though there had been no fight.

Jenny the yellow mule had a bullet hole through her ear; Jimmie Muldoon’s white horse was dead; but speedily he and Terry were mounted again, waiting for the construction-train to finish unloading, and for the boarding-train to back out and clear.

That was the system of the U. P., building across the plains into the Far West.

“Hey, Jimmie! Where were you?” hailed Terry.

“I got behind the cook’s stove,” piped little Jimmie, blushing as red as his hair. “But I came out and handed ca’tridges. Weren’t you afraid?”

“I dunno. I guess I was too excited.”

“You done well, anyhow,” praised Jimmie, with disregard of grammar.

General Dodge went on up the grade, inspecting. The three men in city clothes, with him, were General J. H. Simpson, of the United States Engineer Corps; General Frank P. Blair, who had been one of the youngest major-generals in the Civil War; and Congressman H. M. White, who was called “Major” and “Doctor.” They formed a board of inspectors, or commissioners, sent out by the Government to examine every twenty or forty miles of the road, when finished, and accept it.

The United States was lending money for the building of the first railroad across continent, and naturally wished to see that the money was being well spent.

The commissioners traveled in a special coach, called the “Lincoln” coach because it had been made for President Abraham Lincoln, during the War. The railroad had bought it, for the use of officials.

Now it was back at North Platte, the terminus. When the commissioners heard of the fight, they had volunteered to come along with General Dodge and help out.

“Drill, my paddies, drill!

Drill, you tarriers, drill!

O, it’s work all day,

No sugar in your tay,

Wor-rkin’ on th’ U. Pay. Ra-a-ailway!”

The construction-train had dumped its iron, the boarding-train had backed out, and Jimmie and Terry again plied back and forth, with the rails.

The Pawnees returned, in high feather like a lot of boys themselves. They certainly were fighters. Major Frank M. North, a white man, was their commander. He had lived among them, and spoke their language, and they’d follow him to the death. He had enlisted four companies—drilled them as regular cavalry, according to army regulations; they were sworn into the United States Army as scouts, and were deadly enemies to the Sioux and the Cheyennes. The Sioux and Cheyennes feared them so, that it was said a company of North’s Pawnees was worth more than a regiment of regular soldiers. When these Pawnees sighted an enemy, they simply threw off their clothes and waded right in.

The two companies, A and B, made camp on the plains, a little distance off, near the Platte River. Major North and Chief Petalesharo—who was the war-chief and son of old Petalesharo, known as “bravest of the braves”—cantered forward to the track. The major wore buckskin and long hair, like a frontiersman. Petalesharo wore army pants with the seat cut out, and the legs sewed tight, same as leggins.

“Take any hair, major?” was the call.

“Yes; there are three or four fresh scalps in the camp yonder. But most of the beggars got away too fast.”

“Say, Pete! Heap fight, what?”

Petalesharo smiled and grunted, with wave of hand.

“He says the Sioux ponies have long legs,” called Major North. “Where’s the general? He was here, wasn’t he?”

“Yes; he’s up ahead, with the graders.”

The major—young and daring and very popular—rode on with Chief “Pete,” as if to report to General Dodge.

They all came back together, after a time—and the newly laid track was advancing to meet them. 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.

General Simpson and Dr. White had seen the track-laying gang at work last year, but this was young General Blair’s first trip out. Now while he was here, three-quarters of a mile of track was laid before the call for supper sounded; and as the men rushed to meet the train, Engineer Richards unhooked and gave the three commissioners a ride on the cow-catcher to the very end o’ track, to show them how well the rails had been put down.

In honor of the commissioners, after supper there was a parade of the Pawnees, under Major North and the white captains Lute North and Mr. Morse, Lieutenants Beecher and Matthews, and Chief Petalesharo.

A great parade it was, too—“Might call it a dress p’rade, and ag’in ye might call it an undress p’rade,” as Foreman Pat remarked. The Pawnees were in all kinds of costume: some wore cavalry blouses and left their legs naked; some wore cavalry trousers with the seats cut out, and left their bodies naked; some wore large black campaign hats of Civil War time, with brass bugles and crossed muskets and crossed cannon, on the front; some wore nothing but breech clouts, and brass spurs on their naked heels; but they kept excellent line and wheeled and trotted at word of command.

They broke up with a wild yell, and away they went, careening over the plain, whooping and prancing and shooting, and taking scalps—chasing the “Sioux.”

“The gin’ral wants to see you,” ordered Pat, of Terry. “Ye’ll find him in his car yon. Now stand on your feet an’ take off your hat an’ do the polite, an’ mebbe it’s promoted you’ll be.”

So Terry, with Shep close following, trudged down the line of box-cars, to the Chief Engineer’s “traveling arsenal.” He was curious to see the inside of it. This was the general’s home, in which he toured up and down the line, from Omaha to the end o’ track, caring not a whit for the Indians.

It was fitted up inside with bunks and a desk and racked guns, and a forward compartment which was dining-room and kitchen, ruled by a darky cook. When the general was not traveling in his car, he was out overseeing the surveys far beyond the railroad; he had explored through the plains and mountains to Salt Lake long before the railroad had started at Omaha.

The whole party were in the car; the three commissioners (General Simpson was a famous explorer, too), and General Casement, and Superintendent Reed, sitting with General Dodge. Terry removed his dusty hat, and stood in the doorway. Shep stuck his black nose past his legs, to gaze and sniff.

“Hello, my boy,” General Dodge greeted.

“Pat Miles said you wanted to see me, sir.”

“That’s right. Come in, dog and all. Gentlemen, this is Terry Richards. They tell me he risked his life to save the boarding-train from being wrecked during the Indian attack. I move that we all shake hands with him.”

Terry, considerably flustrated, had his hand shaken, all ’round.

“Well, what’s your job, Terry?” asked General Dodge. He was a handsome man, every inch a soldier, but with a very kind eye above a dark, trimmed beard. Nobody could feel afraid of General Dodge.

“I help bring up the rails, on a truck. I ride a yellow mule, sir.”

“You’re rather a big boy to be doing that.”

“Yes, sir; but that’s my job. Somebody has to do it. The men have got to have rails.”

“Very necessary, in building a railroad,” laughed General Blair.

“We did almost two miles today,” informed Terry. “We’d have done two miles sure if the Injuns hadn’t tried to stop us.”

“That’s the right spirit,” approved General Simpson.

“General Casement is responsible for it,” quickly spoke Chief Engineer Dodge. “His men are trained to the minute, either to work or to fight. But the Union Pacific Company doesn’t overlook individual acts of bravery. What would you like to do instead of riding that yellow mule, Terry?”

“I’d like to be out in front, exploring with the engineers, sir.”

“Oh, you would!” General Dodge’s eyes kindled. Evidently he liked that kind of work, himself. “Why? It’s the most dangerous job of all—away out in the Indian country, with only a handful of men and maybe no help except your own guns.”

“I think I’d like it, though,” stammered Terry. “If I could be any use, George Stanton’s out there somewhere.”

“Who’s George Stanton?”

“He’s another boy. He’s my pardner. We were station hands on the Overland [that was the stage line] before we joined the railroad.”

“Where is George?”

“I don’t know, exactly. He went out with his father in Mr. Bates’ survey party, as a sort of a cub to learn engineering. I guess he cuts stakes.”

“Oh, I see. The Bates party are bound from Utah, to run a line this way. But they’ll not be back before winter. Probably none of the survey parties will turn up before winter. I’m afraid it’s too late for a job with the engineers in the field, this year. Maybe you’ll have to stick to your old mule, and haul rails for General Casement.”

“Well, if there’s nothing better I can do,” agreed Terry. “It’s fun to help the track go forward, anyhow. We’ll beat the Central folks.”

“Yes, siree!” 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.

“There’s one more party to go out yet,” General Dodge suddenly said; “and that’s mine. If General Casement will lend you to me, maybe I’ll have a place for you. We’ll see if we can’t find the Bates party, and George Stanton.” And he added, with a smile, to the other men: “A fellow can always use a boy, around camp, you know, gentlemen.”

“Golly! I’d sure like to go, sir,” Terry blurted.

“Were you ever farther west?”

“Yes, sir. I helped drive stage, when I was working for the Overland. And George and I had a pass to Salt Lake, but George broke his leg up on the divide, in the mountains, so we quit and came back.”

“How did you happen to get a pass?”

“Just for something we did. We brought a stage through, when the driver was near frozen. ’Twasn’t much, though. But we were glad to get a pass. We’d never been west over the line.”

“How far east have you been over this line?” asked the general, keenly.

“North Platte, is all. I joined at North Platte, this spring, when you began the big push to make 290 miles before stopping again.”

“Two hundred and eighty-eight,” the general corrected. “That will take us to Fort Sanders in the Laramie Plains. But I think you ought to inspect what’s been done in the two other years. It’s up to the Union Pacific to treat you as well as the Overland treated you. Did you ever ride on a railroad?”

“I guess I did when I was little, before we came out to Kansas. We drove out to Kansas from Ohio in 1858; but after that Harry Revere and I drove across to Denver.”

“Who’s Harry Revere?”

“He’s a friend of George and me. He was an Overland man, too—he was station-keeper at Beaver Creek station while George and I were hostlers. Then he rode Pony Express for a while, between Bijou Junction and Denver. He’s a dandy; as spunky as a badger. He’s back east somewhere, on the railroad, doing telegraphing.”

“You build railroads, but you don’t travel on them, eh?” laughed General Blair.

“Yes, sir. All I do is haul rails and watch ’em being laid—but the graders don’t even see the rails. They just shovel dirt.”

“You’ll be out of sight of the rails and the dirt, too, if you go on that western trip with me,” General Dodge said, grimly. “So first, you’d better get acquainted with the finished end and see what those rails that you’ve helped lay are being used for. Suppose you stay right aboard this car and take a trip back, of a couple of hundred miles, if General Casement will spare you.”

“I’ll spare him if you’ll spare some of that 288 miles,” General Casement retorted. “You’re breaking up my army.”

Evidently even a boy was important, these days.

“Jimmie Muldoon’s brother will spell me, while I’m gone,” 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.”

“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. He’d fight Injuns, only today there was too much shooting, so he stayed in the engine.”

“Well,” spoke the general, “you see your father and Pat Miles and Jimmie Muldoon; then bring your dog and come along back to the car. We’re going down to North Platte tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you as far as Kearney, anyhow. How’ll that suit you?”

“Fine, sir.” And Terry hustled out, his head in a whirl of excitement.

Matters were speedily fixed; but before he could return dusk had settled over the great expanse of lonely plains. The Pawnees were on guard. Far up the grade a few lights twinkled, from the graders’ camps. Already the track-layer gang were going to bed; some inside the boarding-train, some on top, some underneath—just as they all pleased.

Ordinarily Terry would have spread his blankets on top, where there was plenty of fresh air. However, this night he was to be a guest of the big chief, General Dodge himself, in the headquarters car, for a trip over the new U. P. Railroad, to see that the rails were O. K.

And so was Shep. Shep usually tried to go wherever Terry went—except, of course, when guns were banging too recklessly.

The men were still up, in the rear or office end of the headquarters car, talking together.

“The rest of us won’t turn in till we’re back at North Platte,” the general explained. “I’ve had a bunk opened for you, up forward. Do you think you can sleep?”

“Yes, sir. I can always sleep,” Terry assured.

“All right. Good night. You won’t miss much. We’ll probably lie over at North Platte till morning.”

The bunk was a clever arrangement. During the day it was folded against the side of the car and nobody would know it was there. At night it was let down, and hung flat with a curtain in front of it. The car probably had several such bunks. They were something new, the invention of a Mr. Pullman; and when Terry climbed into his, he found it mighty comfortable. Shep curled underneath, between the seats.

Lying snug and warm, Terry prepared to calm himself, and sleep; but the future looked very bright. He caught his thoughts surging ahead, upon the survey trip half promised by the general: maybe clear to Utah, exploring and finding George and the Bates party. Hooray! Indians, bear and buffalo, new country—! Pshaw! He was getting wide awake. He ought to sleep. So he began to figure.

Over 300 miles, so far, by the Union Pacific, in the two years and a quarter; 700 miles yet to Salt Lake, and then as much farther as they could get before meeting the Central! The general had planned to lay nearly 300 miles more—288 anyway—this year! Whew! Forty car-loads of supplies to every mile; 400 rails and 2,650 ties to every mile; ten spikes to each rail, three blows of the sledge to each spike—then how many rails, how many ties, how many sledge blows, how many galloping charges back and forth of Jenny and the little truck, to cross plains and deserts and mountains and win the race with the Central?

This tour by train was going to be nice enough, but it seemed tame compared with end o’ track work, and with surveying. And the laying of the track looked to be such a big job that perhaps General Casement couldn’t spare him again. Shucks!

While figuring and bothering, Terry fell asleep. He did not know that his trip east and back was not going to be as tame as it appeared in advance.

CHAPTER IV
DOWN THE LINE—AND BACK

Sometime in the night he knew that they were in motion—the engine was pushing them along, over the track. But when he really woke up, they were standing still, in daylight. North Platte, as like as not; or maybe Kearney. No, it couldn’t be Kearney, could it, for Kearney was 100 miles and more, and that seemed a long way to go, in just one night. At any rate, they were standing in some town; there was a lot of noise outside, of shouting and engine-puffing and feet-scuffling. So he put on his clothes in a jiffy and jumped down through the curtains.

By the rattle of dishes and the smell of bacon the cook was getting breakfast, but the main part of the car was empty. Everybody had left. Seemed as though General Dodge didn’t take time to sleep, himself, for no other bunk was open. Here came old Shep, yawning, from his night’s quarters. Terry hastened to the platform, to find where they were.

North Platte, sure. They’d come only sixty or seventy miles, and must have been lying here quite a while. Yes, it was North Platte, on the south bank of the North Platte River just above where the North Platte joined the South Platte to help make the big Platte.

North Platte was the end of the road, for traffic; the terminal point, that is. The freight and passenger trains from Omaha, 293 miles, stopped here and went back; only the construction-trains went on, with supplies for end o’ track. But North Platte was considerable of a place—and an awful tough place, too, plumb full of gambling joints and saloons.

It had started up in a hurry, last December, when the road had reached it and had made a terminal point and supply depot of it, for the winter. 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.

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, toward end o’ track. A passenger train had pulled in from Omaha. The passengers were trooping to the Railroad House (which was the name of the $18,000 hotel) or to the eating-room in the Casement Brothers’ portable warehouse, or bargaining to be taken by wagons across the South Platte ford, where the Overland Stage for Denver connected with the railroad.

As fast as the Union Pacific, on the north side of the Platte River, lengthened its passenger haul from Omaha, on the south side of the Platte River the Overland Stage shortened its haul to Denver and Salt Lake.

After a while there would be no stage haul needed, through this country. The stages would run only between Denver and wherever the railroad passed by, north of it; and people would go through from the Missouri River in two days instead of in six.

An engine and tender backed up and hooked on to the Dodge car; a fine-looking car, which must be the Lincoln car for the Government commissioners, had been coupled on, behind. While Terry gazed about, from his platform, trying to take in all the sights, here came General Dodge and Superintendent Reed, as if in a hurry.

“All aboard!” The general waved his arm at the engineer, as he sprang up the steps. To ring of bell and hiss of exhaust the little train started. There was no time lost.

“Hello, young man,” the general greeted, to Terry. “Ready for the day?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I expect you’d like to begin with breakfast. So would Mr. Reed and I. We’ve made one beginning but we’ll make another. We all can eat and watch things go past at the same time.”

Decidedly, it was fun to sit at a table and eat while whirled along across country at a tremendous pace, with the landscape flitting by in plain sight just outside the windows.

“How fast are we going now, please?” Terry ventured.

The general looked at his watch a minute, and seemed to be listening.

“About twenty-five miles an hour, I should judge. Is that right, Sam?”

“Pretty nearly right,” agreed Superintendent Reed.

Whew! And when Ben Holladay, the King of the Overland Stage, had made fourteen miles in an hour with his special coach and a special team of fours, that had seemed like a lightning trip.

They had thundered over the long bridge above the North Platte River, and were scooting eastward, parallel with the main Platte. From across the river the emigrants who still stuck to their slow prairie schooners or covered wagons, waved at the train. At a safe distance some antelope fled, flashing their white rumps. Prairie-dogs sat up at the mouth of their burrows, to gaze.

Once in a while a ranch, with low adobe buildings, might be seen, south of the river; and an old stage station there, before or behind, was almost always in sight. The Overland had quit running, east of Cottonwood station, near North Platte.

On this side of the river there was not much to see, except the railroad telegraph poles, and the prairie-dogs, and the line of rails that stretched clear to Omaha on the Missouri River, and a side-station of one little building which slipped by so quickly that Terry could not read the sign.

The general and Superintendent Reed went back into the Lincoln car, to talk with the commissioners there. They left the headquarters car to Terry, Shep and the black cook.

“How you like this sort o’ travel, boy?” queried the cook, as he tidied the car with a dust-rag.

“We’re sure moving,” Terry grinned. “It beats staging. How fast are we going now, do you think?”

“Oh, mebbe thirty miles an houah. Reckon we gotto meet ’nother train. This heah road is shy on meetin’ places yet. But, sho’, thirty miles ain’t nothin’, boy. When the gin’ral heahs somethin’ callin’ him, he jest tells this old cah to step on the injine’s tail, an’—woof! ’Way we go, fifty, mebbe fifty-five miles an houah! Yessuh. Sometimes the gin’ral he likes to show off a bit, too, when there’s gover’ment folks abohd. He shuah gives ’em a ride, so they’ll know this ain’t any play road, down today an’ up tomorrow. Where you from?”

“End o’ track,” answered Terry.

“What you do there?”

“Haul rails.”

“Was you up there yestuhday, when they fit the Injuns?”

“You bet. They found we were bad medicine, too. They almost set the boarding-train on fire, though. That was a right smart fight, till the general and the Pawnees came and drove ’em off in a jiffy.”

“Hi yi!” the cook chuckled. “We-all had jest got into Nohth Platte when the gin’ral, he heard about it. He’s a powerful fightin’ man, the gin’ral is. He’s fit Injuns a lot o’ times befoh. An’ those commishners, they’re fightin’ men, too; they done fit in the wah. An’ there was a passel o’ seemed like white trash here, who was quittin’ work on the road because they’d got paid off. But the gin’ral, he calls out: ‘You boys, the Injuns are ’tackin’ our camps up the road. Pile in, if you want to go with me.’ An’ they shuah piled in, every last one of ’em, same as though they hadn’t quit the road at all. Yessuh! An’ when they piled in, this chile he piled out, t’other end. He guessed like he wasn’t needed. Hi yi! No, suh! He’s got too much scalp. His hair ain’t like white man’s hair; it’s same length all ovuh his haid.”

“Indians don’t scalp negroes. They can’t. And they think it’s bad medicine,” said Terry. “They call you buffalo soldiers.”

“I ain’t no buff’lo soldiers. I’m a cook, an’ I knowed they didn’t want no cook up yonduh,” the darky retorted. “Yessuh. An’ in case it come on night, Injuns might not make any diff’rence ’tween a white man an’ a black man. No, suh.”

“Not unless they felt your hair,” laughed Terry.

The cook seemed to turn a shade pale.

“No Injun’s gwine to feel my hair. No, suh! Not unless he can outrun this heah train; an’ then when he reaches in he’s got to catch me, foh if I once get out the othuh end—oh, boy! I’d jest hit the ground twice between the train an’ Omaha. The Injuns’d be sayin’ ‘There he goes’ the same time Omaha was sayin’ ‘Heah he comes!’ Yessuh! I’m powerful scared o’ Injuns. It’s gwine to be a mighty bad yeah, foh Injuns, too.”

“How do you know?”

“’Cause I heard the gin’ral sayin’ so. I heard him say he’d asked foh moh soldiers, to guard the line cl’ar to the mountings. Yessuh. He’s asked Gin’ral Sherman. How far you gwine?”

“I dunno. To Omaha, maybe. Why?”

“Got some kin there?”

“No. I’m riding for fun.”

“You ridin’ foh fun?”

“Yes.”

“When you get to Omaha, then you gwine back where you come from?”

“Sure thing. I’ve got a job, at end o’ track.”

“Don’t you do it; don’t you do it, boy,” advised the cook, as darkly as his face. “Don’t you ride ’round these pahts foh fun. No, suh! An’ don’t you staht back from Omaha till Gin’ral Sherman’s soldiers have killed ev’ry one o’ them Injuns. Yessuh! You let Gin’ral Sherman an’ Gin’ral Dodge ’tend to one end o’ track, an’ you get a job at t’other end.”

Terry had to laugh, but the cook’s words struck home. Matters looked bad. The Indians had started in, that was certain; and everybody appeared to think that this was an “Injun” year. Somehow, he felt that he was deserting his post. He was leaving Paddy Miles and the gang to their troubles, and was making for safety, himself.

“When do we stop next?” he asked.

“I dunno. Mebbe we’ll stop at Willow Island, foh ohduhs; an’ mebbe we’ll stop at Kearney. Jest depends on the gin’ral. We stop whenever we please, or whenever the injineer needs wood an’ watuh, or whenever we got to meet ’nothuh train.”

“How far is Kearney?”

“Hundred miles from Nohth Platte. We’ll get there befoh noon, an’ we’ll get to Omaha befoh dark. Yessuh, we’ll travel right along.”

The cook went on about his business, and Terry stared out at the flying country, which danced a reel in tune with the roaring wheels. This was great fun, of course, to be speeding over the new Union Pacific Railroad, in a private car, but——! And he wondered how Jenny and Jimmie Muldoon’s brother were holding down the job at end o’ track.

With a swoop and a whistle they rushed past a long freight-train, waiting on a siding. At every siding there was one of these long freights, plumb loaded and headed west, or partly empty and headed east.

They might get a glimpse of Fort McPherson, at Cottonwood Springs on the stage road along the other side of the river. Then they whirled right through Brady Island station of the railroad. But stop they did at Willow Island, which bore the same name as the old Overland station, across from it.

The station buildings, except the station-house itself, were of sod, and loop-holed so as to fight off the Indians. They looked like a fort. A lot of cedar bridge-piles and telegraph poles and cottonwood ties were stacked here, brought in by ranchers’ wagons from the places where they had been cut. The road didn’t get much of such stuff, on these bare plains, but once in a while there was a valley or some bottom-land with a little timber growing. Cedar ties and cottonwood ties were no good, though, until they were soaked in zinc, to make them hard and lasting. The best ties came from Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The next stop was at Plum Creek, also named for the old stage station, opposite; then there was a pause on a side-track, to let another train by; and they were off again. It certainly was fast work.

General Dodge entered his headquarters car.

“How do you like railroading, now?” he asked.

“Fine, sir. We go some, don’t we!”

“Rather beat the stages, or your old yellow mule, that’s a fact,” the general admitted. “But if it wasn’t for you fellows that lay the track in such good shape, we couldn’t go at all.”

“And the men who discover the trail—they count a heap, too, I guess,” Terry added.

“Yes, siree. 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?”

“Would I be a long time getting back?” Terry queried.

“No, sir; not unless the road is tied up by Indian trouble. I’ll put you on a train and send you right through to North Platte; then you can jump a construction-train, and keep going to end of track again. You’ll have your pass.”

“Where do we stop next, please?” Terry asked.

“At Kearney. We’ll be there in about an hour. You can get off and stretch your legs, and so can the dog.”

“Could I go back from Kearney?” Terry blurted.

“Oh, pshaw!” And the general’s eyes twinkled. “You aren’t homesick already, are you? You might have to wait there until two o’clock in the morning, for the passenger train. You could catch the same train farther down the line. No; you’d better ride on to Omaha, and see the whole system that you’ve helped build.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Terry—but somehow he felt a little doubtful. If he should be kept at Omaha, on account of Indian trouble—oh, that wouldn’t do at all. His place was at the front.

Kearney had been named for old Fort Kearney, across the river. It wasn’t much of a place, yet: just the station and a store and scattering of small houses. There were several soldiers from the fort standing around. General Dodge and Superintendent Reed had jumped off and seemed to be having business with an officer, while the engine took on water; so Terry and Shep jumped off, too. Then a man came running from the station door, with a piece of yellow paper—a telegram—for the engineer.

He was a lively young man, with a limp. Staring, Terry scarcely could believe his eyes. Now he, too, ran, yelling, and Shep bolted ahead, barking, and they caught the young man, who turned, astonished.

Yes, it was Harry Revere, all right—good old Harry, ex-school teacher, ex-Pike’s Peaker, ex-prospector, ex-Pony Express rider, ex-Overland Stage station-keeper, and a dandy partner.

“For heaven’s sake, what you doing here?” he demanded, as they shook hands.

“Oh, I’m traveling special, inspecting the U. P.,” grinned Terry. “What you doing?”

“I’m the boss lightning-shooter at this shebang,” proclaimed Harry. “You couldn’t travel at all, if it wasn’t for me. See? Wait till I deliver this dispatch.”

In a moment he came back.

“Thought you were somewhere down the line farther; thought you were in Omaha, maybe,” said Terry.

“So I was, but I’m getting promoted out toward the front. That’s where I want to be. I won’t stop till I’m clear through to Salt Lake. But where you going? Thought you had a job at the front, yourself? How’s Jenny? [Jenny really was Harry’s mule, but she was working for the company.] How are your folks?”

“They’re all right. So’s Jenny. Jimmie Muldoon’s brother is riding her and spelling me. I’m going to Omaha. General Dodge invited me.”

“You haven’t quit?”

“No. I’m just on a little trip.”

“What do you want to go on to Omaha for?” scolded Harry. “Shucks! This is no time to take it easy, when we’re trying to make a big year. I want to be at the front, myself. There’s nothing between here and Omaha. Where’s George?”

“He’s on survey, ’way out.”

“Wish I was with him,” asserted Harry. “But I’m getting along, by hops and skips. I don’t savvy why you want to go to Omaha, when you were at the front, yourself, with Jenny.”

“I don’t want to go, Harry,” Terry confessed. “Gee, I’d like to be back already. General Dodge has asked me, though; I guess he thinks it’s a treat for me to ride to Omaha. I’m sick of loafing—I’ve been gone a night and half a day, now, and I ought to be back, in case they need me.”

“Bully for you,” Harry praised. “I’ll tell you: You stop off here with me, for a couple of hours. You can explain to the general that you’d rather stay and visit me than go on to Omaha. You won’t have to wait for the passenger train. No, sir! I’ll fix you out.”

“I’ll ask him,” answered Terry, on the run again.

The general seemed to understand perfectly.

“You see, sir,” Terry finished, “I’d like to be on the job till you come through next time, and then maybe I can get off to go out on that survey trip, if you have room for me. I’d rather find George Stanton than go to Omaha. I like the front, and I’ve seen a whole lot of the road, now.”

“That’s all right,” General Dodge approved. “The front’s the best place. You stay there, and keep your share of the rails moving up. We can’t run trains without rails, and unless we have the rails we can’t get to Salt Lake and beat the Central. So good-by and good luck. I’ll have a wire sent to your father that you’ve turned back.”

“Please tell him to tell Pat Miles that I’ll be there tomorrow morning sure, and I’ll want my mule and truck,” Terry begged.

The general laughed. He and Mr. Reed boarded their train and it pulled out. 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. Were you in that Injun fracas at end o’ track, yesterday?”

“I shore was. How’d you hear?”

“I picked it off the wire. I just sat here and made medicine while you-all fought. Nobody scalped, was there? Did they hurt Jenny? I asked the North Platte operator and he laughed at me. ‘Ha, ha!’ was all he said.”

“Nope; nobody scalped, except a couple of the Sioux. They put a hole through Jenny’s ear, though.”

“The low-down villains!” grumbled Harry. “Abused the beautiful ear of my Jenny, did they? When I come along I’ll bring her an earring. Reckon a little bale of hay would please her most: an earring to represent a little bale of hay. And a cob of corn for the other ear, if she gets a hole through that too. Say,” he asked, “you didn’t see Sol Judy in those parts, did you?”

“No. Is Sol around there?”

“Yep. He’s a scout at Fort McPherson, helping guard the line.” That was good news. Sol Judy was another old friend. He dated away back to the Kansas ranch, where he’d appeared on his way from California. And he’d been with them in the Colorado gold diggin’s, and had driven stage and scouted along the Overland; and now here he was again, still doing his share of work while the country grew.

“Our whole family’s joining in with the U. P., looks like,” Harry added.

“All except my mother and George’s mother and Virgie.” Virgie was George Stanton’s sister. “And I bet you they’ll be on the job some way, before we get done with it.”

“You win,” Harry chuckled. “That’s their style—right up and coming. Well, let’s go to dinner. How’d you like fried ham and saleratus biscuits?”

“Fine.”

“Good. Yesterday I had saleratus biscuits and fried ham, today we’ll have fried ham and saleratus biscuits; tomorrow there’ll be just biscuits and ham. It’s a great system.”

They ate in the section house, at a board table covered with oilcloth. After dinner they swapped yarns and visited, while Harry busied himself dispatching or attending to the people who dropped in. A passenger train from the west came through, and a freight.

About three o’clock Harry took another message, and reported on it.

“Now you can get out of here. There’ll be a freight along in about half an hour.” That was welcome news.

“From the east, you mean?”

“Yep.”

“Hooray,” Terry cheered. “I’ll be on the job again in the morning.”

But Harry scowled as he jiggled his telegraph key.

“Dead once more,” he complained.

“Who?”

“The line west.”

“Maybe the operator up there’s asleep.”

“No. It’s lack of juice. I can tell. Something’s busted.”

“Injuns did it, huh?”

“Naw, don’t think so. Ever since that buck tore a wire out and tried to ride off with it, and lightning struck the line a mile or so beyond and killed him and his pony both, the Injuns have let the Talking Spirit alone. ’Cept of course they shoot the insulators off, now and then. And the Overlanders chop the poles for firewood and use a piece of wire when they want to fix their wagons. At least, they do that on the other side the river, and I reckon they reach over and do it on this side. And the poles make mighty fine scratch sticks for the buffalo to rub against.”

The Overland Telegraph Company’s line across continent followed the stage road, south of the Platte; the Union Pacific Railroad line followed the rails on this side of the river. But when the railroad was finished, there would likely be only the one line.

“What are you going to do?” Terry asked.

“Find Bill Thompson. The break’s between here and Willow.”

“Who’s Bill Thompson?”

“Head lineman. He’ll have to get out and fix it. You stay here and keep shop while I hunt Bill.”

“Supposing the freight comes along,” queried Terry. “Do I jump it?”

“Nary a jump,” Harry answered, from the door. “Let her come. She dassn’t run through without orders from the boss, and that’s Harry Revere, chief lightning-shooter, station-agent, ticket-seller, express-toter, freight-slinger, baggage-wrecker and baby-tender. I’ll be back and tell ’em what to do.”

He was gone about twenty minutes, and returned considerably flustered.

“Bill’s fishing. Dog-gone him! He never catches anything, either. He went up the Platte or down the Platte; left word he was going down, so probably he’s up. Now traffic on the Union Pacific Railroad will have to wait on Bill. I’ve got people hunting him.”

The freight pulled in. The engine stood fuming; the crew lolled about; yes, everything and everybody waited on Bill Thompson. Terry felt that he was losing valuable time. This was pretty tough. He wanted to be on his way.

Bill appeared, breathless, at half-past four—and he hadn’t caught a single fish, either. Now he had to get his men together and his handcar out.

“How far’s he going?” Terry demanded, struck with an idea.

“As far as Willow, anyway. North Platte, maybe, if he takes the notion,” said Harry. “There’s better fishing at North Platte—and better eating, too. Besides, he’s got a girl up there, at an all-night hash counter.”

“Gee, then! Why can’t Shep and I go too?” Terry proposed.

“Sure thing. There’s nothing like a handcar, for seeing the country from. Climb aboard. Tell Bill I sent you.”

“But won’t the freight pass us?”

“Not till you get to Willow. It’ll have to wait till Bill gives the O. K. These freights are mighty uncertain—they’re strictly limited. When they don’t happen to be moving they’re standing still, waiting for something. The main business of a freight crew on this line seems to be hunting a side-track. So if you’re really in a hurry you’d better take the handcar.”

“All right. Good-by.” And Terry ran for the handcar.

“I’ll see you at Salt Lake,” called Harry, after.

The handcar crew were about ready. They numbered four, in broad-brimmed slouch hats, flannel shirts, and trousers tucked into heavy boots. They were just stowing their climbing irons and other tools on the car, and a couple of rifles, also.

Bill Thompson, the red-faced head lineman, with whiskers on his chin, granted Terry a sharp look.

“What’s the matter, bub?”

“Harry said I could go up track with you, if you don’t mind.”

“An’ the dawg too?”

“Yes, please.”

“An’ ’ow fur might you be goin’?” By his speech Bill was English.

“Clear to North Platte, if I can. I’ve got a job with the track-laying gang at end o’ track.”

“You ’ave, ’ave you? H’all right. H’aint afraid o’ h’Injuns, h’are you?”

“No, sir.”

“Needn’t be scared of Injuns, boy,” remarked one of the other men, as Terry and Shep hopped aboard together. “They don’t bother the track. These here guns are for antelope. You sit at one end, out of the way, and hold your dog where he won’t be stepped on.”

With a running start they were off. Harry waved from the station door.

Shep lay braced, considerably astonished; but he was a wise old dog, and put his trust in his master. Terry sat with his legs hanging over the rear end of the car; the men, two to a bar, pumped regularly; the car gathered way, and moved clanking over the rails. This assuredly beat riding upon a train, because a fellow was right outdoors and could see everywhere.

It was sort of go-as-you-please, too. The men kept close watch of the telegraph line; now and then they stopped the car, and one of them put on his climbing irons and shinned up a pole, to inspect. But they didn’t find the break, yet. Meanwhile the sun sank lower and lower, and presently entered a bank of clouds in the west. Dusk began to gather; the plains seemed very quiet and lonely, and the handcar small and lost.

What with the frequent stops, to investigate, darkness was making everything dim when they rolled into Plum Creek station. Plum Creek was as lonely as the country around; the station was locked and the agent evidently had gone for the night.

“’E wouldn’t know h’anything, any’ow,” remarked Bill Thompson. “’E h’ain’t a h’operator.”

They bowled on, through Plum Creek, and into the darkness.

“’Ow’s a man expected to see a broken wire this time o’ day?” Bill grumbled.

“’Tisn’t day; it’s night.”

“Right you h’are,” he answered. “We’ll go h’on to Willow an’ find out if h’anybody there knows h’anything. An’ when we’re at Willow we’re ’alf way to North Platte, aye? Might as well go on to North Platte, aye? H’are you game? North Platte’s a proper kind o’ place. ’Bout time this line was inspected clear through, h’anyway. Climb a pole, one o’ you, an’ test out. We’re liable to pass that break unbeknown.”

With a torch, one of the men climbed a pole.

“I can raise ’em east, but I can’t get ’em, west,” he called down. “The break’s on ahead still. I see a light, ’way up track.”

“What kind o’ light?”

“First I thought it was a train a-comin’. Doesn’t seem to move, though. It’s ’round a curve. You fellers on the ground can’t see it.”

“Trampers, maybe.”

“Or the h’operator from Willow is tryin’ to fix that break ’imself,” added Bill. “Come down an’ we’ll go h’up.”

So the man came down from the pole, and the handcar moved on, pump-pump, clank-clank, with everybody peering ahead.

Yes, after a time they could glimpse the light, before, where the track led. It flickered ruddily, but did not move. Looked to be a bonfire.

“I don’t see any figgers at it,” said one of the men.

“They must be workin’ on the wire,” said Bill. “Or else layin’ an’ toastin’ their shins.”

“You don’t reckon it’s Injuns, do you?”

“What’d h’Injuns be doin’ with a big fire to show their whereabouts?” Bill reproved. “H’anyway, ’ere we come.”

The distance lessened, and the bonfire grew plainer. It was a hundred yards before, on the curve—it was seventy-five yards—it was fifty yards; the handcar had slackened, while everybody gazed curiously; and suddenly, as if out of the very ground, there had sprung into ruddy view on both sides of the track a dozen figures, ahorse and afoot.

Bill yelped alarmed.

“H’Injuns, boys! Don’t stop. Give it to her! We’ll run right through ’em!”

The men bowed their backs. The handcar fairly jumped as it charged the fire and the figures. Hanging hard and squirming flat, Terry held his breath. A moment more, and ’midst a chorus of yells they were there, running the gauntlet. Then, to a violent crash, they and the car were hurtling together, high in the air.

CHAPTER V
THE CHEYENNES HAVE SOME FUN

With a terrific jar Terry landed far in the brush and went ploughing and rolling, topsy-turvy. He thought that he heard Shep yelp (as if Shep had landed, too, somewhere); then he brought up, in a heap, wedged at the bottom of a little wash.

He lay without moving, listening and wondering if any bones were broken. No; he seemed to be all right. But there were chases, through the brush, in the darkness; the Indians were riding hither-thither, shouting and shooting. He heard it all—the shots, the yells of triumph, a groan or two. The Indians were killing the handcar men!

It seemed to him a long time before that was over with, and every moment he expected an Indian to ride on top of him. But the yelling and shooting and scurrying died away. The Indians appeared to be gathering at their fire.

Ah! What was that? He heard a faint rustle, near him. An Indian was scouting about, on foot, looking for him? He scarcely dared to breathe as he hugged the earth, and his heart thumped like a drum. Then something paused, beside him; next something cold, like a knife blade, pressed against his neck, and he heard a little whimper.

It was Shep, and Shep’s nose! Shep was alive and had found him. Oh, Shep! Good old Shep! Be quiet, Shep. But Shep knew. He was satisfied, and crouched close, only once in a while growling low in his throat.

Here they were—the only ones left alive, Terry felt, from the handcar. Now what could he do? The Indians were talking and laughing, at a little distance. He gradually untangled himself, and inch by inch raised his head, to see, in the direction of the fire. He had to crawl a few feet, to the edge of his wash. He peeped over.

The Indians were collected around their fire, beside the track. Between his place and the fire there was a narrow gully, bridged by a wooden culvert; and upon the track over the culvert there was a tie, fastened to the rails by wire, but knocked askew. That was what the handcar had struck; and he had been thrown clear across to this side and luckily had landed in this wash cut diagonally by the rains. The sage was quite high here, too. He guessed he hadn’t been counted on the handcar, because he had been lying down and the four men had been standing.

He could just see the handcar, bottomside up, in the brush on the slope of the gully. Now the Indians were leaving their fire and trooping down track a little way. They began to pry at the rails, with poles. They were planning another wreck. This one had been a success, but it was only a small one. Perhaps they thought that a tie would not wreck a train, and they wanted to wreck a train.

They pried and worked, loosening the rails. What could a fellow do? That freight at Kearney might have got tired of waiting, and be along any time. Or a passenger train might come. Terry thought upon breaking for Willow Island, to give the alarm there. No, that wouldn’t be the quickest way. If he might only get around the Indians, and run to Plum Creek—it couldn’t be more than five or six miles, and he might meet the train this side of it and stop it, somehow.

“Whisht! Come on, Shep. Careful, now,” he whispered. He started to crawl. Shep crawled behind him. Once down in the gully, maybe they could follow it up a way, and make a circuit around that gang. They reached the bottom, and were about to do finely, when Terry heard a groan.

It sounded from the brush, beyond the gully. He listened, and heard it again. It was a groan in English. One of the handcar men was alive. Well, he ought to go and see.

“’Elp!”

That was Bill Thompson! Bill was groaning for help. Oh, dear!

Up he crawled, seeking the place of the groans.

“Hello! Where are you?” he asked, cautiously. He was almost into the fire-light.

“’Ere. Who are you?”

“Terry Richards. I’m coming.”

He kept crawling, and pretty soon he found Bill lying flat on his side, with his head on his arm. In the faint glimmer of the flames a ghastly thing he was.

“You bad hurt, Bill?”

“’Ello. They shot me through the h’arm an’ knifed me in the neck an’ scalped me, but I got the scalp.”

“What?”

“Yes. ’Ere ’tis, in my ’and. The bloomin’ beggar didn’t ’ang onto h’it. ’E dropped h’it. H’I saw ’im. Felt like the ’ole top o’ my ’ead was h’off, but I got h’it when they wasn’t lookin’. D’ you think h’it’ll grow on me again?”

“I dunno. We’d better get right out of here, though. He may come looking for it.”

“’E ’asn’t missed it, I reckon. H’it was in ’is belt. What they doin’ now?”

“Tearing up the rails, so as to wreck a train. I’m going to try to make Plum Creek. I’ll help you into that gully; then I’ve got to go.”

“H’all right,” groaned Bill. “You go. Never you mind me. H’I can manage.”

“No,” said Terry. And suddenly he crouched lower. “Keep quiet, Bill. They’re coming back.”

“Oh, the bloody villains,” groaned Bill. “Make a run for it, while you can. Never mind me.”

“I can’t,” answered Terry. And even if he would, he didn’t dare. They might see him; if they didn’t catch him, they’d find Bill——!

The whole body of Indians were roistering back, up track, for their fire; probably to hide near it, as before, and wait. Some were afoot, some on ponies; and a hideous sight they offered, to Terry, crouched here on the outskirts of the fire-light, and daring to move not a muscle. Cheyennes; that’s who they were: Cheyennes!

They began to scatter out, for ambush. Perhaps there’d be a chance to risk it and crawl farther away. Ah! Oh, thunder! One of them was coming across, straight this way, prowling through the brush.

“Lie low, Bill. Watch sharp.”

“What’s doin’?”

“They’re at the fire, but one of ’em’s coming.”

“’E’s lookin’ for ’is scalp,” Bill groaned.

They stiffened, motionless. Shep growled, and Terry nudged him frantically. The Indian—he had feathers in his braids and a gun in his hands—ranged right and left, and all the time drew nearer. At that rate, he couldn’t miss them—not if he kept on. Terry didn’t know whether to bolt or to stay. If Shep only would quit that growling——! Or if the Indian would only turn aside. To be shot, or tomahawked, would be awful. It took a great deal of nerve to stiffen, here, and hold one’s breath, and wait and pray. There was just the chance that they wouldn’t be discovered—but the Indian was coming, coming, in sure and easy fashion, looking for that scalp!

Quit it, Shep! Bill was gasping, in his efforts to utter no sound. It was worse for him, because he couldn’t see. Terry could see, with the corner of an eye, through the brush—and he’d about made up his mind that at the last moment he would bolt, and run, dodging, for the open. He’d have to risk a bullet, and have to risk being overhauled; but he might get away, and that would lead the Indian from Bill, too. There wasn’t any use in the both of them being found, in this one spot.

He was all braced, to make his dive, when on a sudden Shep took matters into his own hand. The Indian was scouting about, in the brush not more than twenty yards before—and out Shep charged, with a furious snarly rush, in defense.

Terry had no time in which to grab him; and it would have been too late, anyway. An instant more—so brief a space that the Indian was taken by surprise—and out from the brush Shep had sprung for his throat. He knocked the Indian backward. They staggered around together, Shep snarling and snapping, the Cheyenne fighting him off. Terry half sat up, to watch, his heart in his throat.

“It’s my dog,” he panted, to Bill.

The Cheyenne seemed to have Shep by the neck or jaw, and was thrusting with his other arm, stabbing him. Shep yelped, snarlily. With a kick and a fling the Cheyenne threw him aside; and as Shep pluckily struggled to his feet and still snarling made for him again, the Cheyenne quickly leveled rifle, and fired.

The bullet drove poor old Shep in a heap. He lay black and lax, scarcely moving, except to lift his head, and drop it. He had happened to land in a bare spot, and Terry could see him plainly. Yes, he was dead.

Such a hot wrath surged into Terry’s brain and to his very finger-tips that all he wanted now was a chance at that Indian, himself. If he but had a gun—or if he might grab the Indian by the legs, drag him down, and get atop of him! Anything, so as to avenge brave old Shep. For the moment Terry was too hot to think of himself, or Bill, or anybody except Shep, and that Cheyenne.

The Cheyenne stood over Shep, kicked him once or twice, and then seemed about to come on again. Terry crouched, tense and alert. Shep had not saved them, after all. Too bad.

“Is ’e comin’?” murmured Bill. “’E killed the dawg?”

“Sh!” warned Terry.

No! Hurrah! The Cheyenne stopped, and looked back. The Indians by the fire had whooped to him, and were disappearing. The Cheyenne turned and ran for them.

“He’s going, Bill!” Terry gasped. “It’s the train. That’s coming. I can see the headlight. Oh, Bill!”

Bill struggled, to see also. Afar down the track there was a light, wavering and flashing, and they could hear a dull rumble. Several of the mounted Indians had dashed away, in that direction. The others were scuttling and hiding.

“H’it’s the freight,” Bill groaned. “H’it’s the freight that was at Kearney. Bully Brookes, ’e’s h’engine driver, ’Enshaw, ’e’s the stoker. H’it’ll be a smash, an’ we can’t ’elp it. Is your dawg killed?”

“Yes, I guess so. But if he hadn’t run out the Cheyenne would have found us and we’d have been killed, too.”

“’E was a good dawg, a sure-’nough ’ero. ’E stopped the h’Injun, but we can’t stop that train.”

“There are two trains, Bill! I see another light, ’way behind the first one!”

“H’it’ll be plain murder,” Bill groaned. “An’ we can’t do a thing. I wish you’d never found me.”

“I couldn’t have got there in time, anyway,” said Terry.

The first light rapidly grew larger, the rumbling increased. Terry stared, fascinated. He didn’t wish to see, but somehow he had to. If Bully Brookes or his fireman, Henshaw, only would discover the lifted rails and stop, in time, themselves. But it did not seem as though they were going to stop or slacken. Flaring and wavering, the headlight was coming on.

The engine began to whistle madly, with long shriek after long shriek. Had it sensed its danger? But it did not slacken—it was coming faster. And see! The Cheyennes were nagging it; by the glare from the opened firebox as the fireman shoved in the cordwood sticks the Indians were shown, racing on either side, brandishing their bows and guns, egging the train on.

The engine jetted steam from its cylinder cocks; the whistle shrieked and shrieked; the firebox glowed redly as the firemen stoked with the cordwood, the Indians lashed their ponies and plied their arrows. It was a wild scene, and terrible. Terry trembled with excitement. Bill sank back, groaning.

“Tell me when she ’its,” he pleaded.

The engine was approaching the bonfire. It had not reached the tilted rails, yet. Oh, would nobody see them?

They were seen, they were seen! Listen! The notes of the whistle had changed to frantic yaps like those of a frightened animal. “Down brakes, down brakes, quick!” the whistle was imploring. The engine wheels spurted sparks, under reversed throttle. Too late. The racing Cheyennes swerved apart, for safety; even while Terry gazed, and before he had time to close his eyes, the engine rose right into the air, with a roar and a plunge left the track, and dragging the tender and car after car it went lurching into the prairie.

It toppled over, cars toppled, and in a moment everything seemed to be piled in a long heap. The engine was almost buried from sight. Out of the jangle there welled shouts. From the rear, men came running; from the front the Cheyennes charged. One man with a lantern—the conductor, maybe—arrived at the fore; the Indians seemed to miss him, in the excitement, for he turned and ran fast, again, down track, throwing his lantern away. He was going to the train behind, and it looked as though he got off, safe.

The Cheyennes chased about, circled the engine heap, and danced and whooped. Flames burst forth, licking up through the heap, and the scene grew brighter and brighter.

“I think we’d better move, Bill,” Terry stammered. “They’ll see us here, sure, as soon as the train gets to burning. We can hide in the little gully where I was.”

“H’all right,” Bill groaned. “H’it’s a good time, while they’re murderin’ somebody h’else.”

That was a hard journey, with Bill hitching painfully through the brush, using one arm and carrying his scalp and stopping every little while to rest and pant. The wonder was, that he could move at all—a man who had been shot and stabbed and scalped; but he had a lot of will power, and was determined to live and make the scalp grow on his head again, “to fool them bloody h’Injuns.”

At last he was settled in the gully, with Terry’s coat under his head. Terry crawled up to the edge again, to lie shivering, and see what more occurred. It wasn’t very likely, though, that the Indians would leave the wreck until they had to.

No, they stayed there. One or two of the cars following the engine and tender had been loaded with brick. They had landed right on top of the engine, and the bricks were scattered all around. The Indians were pelting the heap with the loose bricks; they acted like children; but pretty soon the fire got too hot for that, so they withdrew, to squat in a circle, and curiously watch.

The second train had backed down track, and was far distant, still backing. Had gone to Plum Creek, probably, for help. Shivering Terry and groaning Bill Thompson were left alone, with the Indians and the blazing wreck. What a night! When would help come?

Terry never forgot this night. Up the track, and down the track beyond the wreck nothing moved. The Indians stretched out and seemed to sleep comfortably in the warmth of their big fire, as if waiting until morning. In the gully Bill now and then groaned. On the edge of the gully Terry huddled and nodded—but whenever he started to doze, he woke with a jump, seeing things.

Poor old Shep! He had Shep in his mind a great deal. Yes, Shep was a hero, and he should not be left there, for the coyotes to eat. That would not be fair.

“H’are you ’ere?” Bill called up, faintly. “’Ello, lad.”

“I’m here,” Terry answered. “I’ll stay with you, Bill. I’m going to stay till people come. I want to bury my dog.”

“’E was a fine dawg,” Bill agreed.

Finally Terry did manage to sleep, in spite of his shivering and his bad dreams. He awakened stiff and bewildered. Where was he? Oh, yes; here in the brush, still, outside the wreck. He might see about him. The air was thin and gray, morning had come. He cautiously raised higher, to look. The wreck was smoking, the Indians were there—they were moving about, and flocking down track, and climbing over the cars. No rescue had come yet. Oh, dear! The telegraph wires had been used, for tying the tie that wrecked the handcar, to the track, but why didn’t help come from Plum Creek way?

Was Bill dead? No, he spoke.

“’Ello?”

“Hello. How are you?”

“Wish I had a drink. What’s doin’ now?”

“They’re robbing the wreck.”

“Yes, that’s what,” groaned Bill.

The Indians were enjoying themselves. They had broken into some cars loaded with drygoods, and were strewing the stuff right and left. As the morning brightened, that was an odd sight, down there. The Cheyennes wrapped themselves in gay calico and gingham and red flannel and other cloths; they tied whole bolts of the same cloth to their saddle horns and their ponies’ tails, and darted hither-thither over the plain, while the bolts unrolled and other riders chased after, trying to step on the long streamers. They had so much plunder that they seemed crazy.

Suddenly they all galloped to one side, to a little rise, and gathered there, like a flock of magpies, gazing up track. Had they seen Terry? He felt a thrill of fear, and huddled lower. Then he bethought to look behind, up track, too—and he saw smoke!

It was a train! A train was coming, from the west. And how it did come! A rescue train! Hurrah!

“Bill! A train’s coming! The Injuns are quitting!”

“Where from?”

“Up track.”

“’Ow’d they get word, thereabouts?”

“I dunno; but it’s coming, and coming lickity-split, as if it had soldiers.”

“’Ooray!” Bill groaned. “An’ I ’ope it ’as a doctor, to stick this ’ere scalp on me again.”

The engine shrieked, and the smoke poured blacker. The Indians were getting restless. Then away they scoured. Terry stood up and yelled and waved his arms, the train—a short train of box-cars—pulled in and soldiers tumbled out. How good their blue coats looked! Terry went stumbling and staggering to meet them. He saw somebody he knew—the scout in buckskin who was leading the soldiers, with the officer.

“Sol! Hello, Sol Judy! Oh, Sol!”

But Sol scarcely knew him.

“Who are you? What? For heaven’s sake, boy! You aren’t Terry Richards?”

“Guess I am.” And Terry sank down. His legs had given out. “Oh, Sol! They wrecked our handcar, and Bill Thompson’s in that gully with his scalp gone, but he’s alive, and they killed Shep and then they wrecked the freight and killed a lot more.”

In a moment he was surrounded and picked up. He had to tell his story all over again, while some examined the wreck, and some got Bill and carried him up, and the Cheyennes meanwhile made off.

They were soldiers from Fort McPherson, beyond Willow. A man had ridden around the Indians, from Plum Creek, and taken the word.

“There aren’t enough of us to follow those fellows,” explained Sol. “But the Pawnees are on the way from end o’ track. They’ll do the business. Now you and Thompson can go back with this train.”

“I want to bury Shep, first,” Terry pleaded.

“Sure you do. He died fighting, like a soldier, and ‘Killed in action’ is the report on him. A good U. P. hand he was, wasn’t he? So we’ll just bury him right here, where he can watch the tracks.”

Nobody seemed to blame Terry any for crying, when he and Sol and a couple of soldiers put Shep away. Sol understood; he had known Shep a long time, himself.

The bodies of the handcar men and a brakeman (the engineer and fireman had been burned) were placed aboard, for Willow. Taking Bill Thompson and Terry, but leaving the soldiers on guard at the wreck, the train backed up track. Bill’s scalp had been stowed in a bucket of water, to keep it limber. It curled about, as it floated, and looked exactly like a drowned rat. No doctor ever did succeed in planting it and making it grow again on Bill’s head; but Bill got well and went to work, wearing a skull-cap.

However, Terry went to work, the first, at end o’ track once more, the next morning. Jenny was glad to see him. His father had been mighty glad, too, and together they mourned the brave Shep.

“I hear tell ye lost your dog,” said Paddy Miles, kindly.

“Yes, that’s so,” Terry answered, with a gulp.

“Ah, well; ’twas a bad night, sure enough, for him an’ you an’ them others,” mused Pat. “But him an’ they are not the only wans. There’s many a grave beside the U. Pay., behind us, an’ there’s more on ahead an’ more yet to be made, before the road goes through. ’Tis a big job an’ a cruel job an’ a long road to travel; but ’tis sich a job as is worth the dyin’ for anny day, say I—though I’d fair like to live jist to see the Cintral baten into Salt Lake an’ the U. Pay. track stretchin’ out clane across Nevady.”

CHAPTER VI
MOVING DAY ALONG THE LINE

On marched the rails of the iron trail, at a giant’s stride of one to two miles in a day, as if trying to catch the tie-layers and the graders. But the tie-layers, planting their ties every two feet, managed to hold the advance; and twenty, thirty, fifty miles in advance of them, the graders followed the stakes of the engineers. Back and forth along the grade toiled the wagons, distributing ties and provisions. From Omaha to North Platte thundered the trains, bringing fresh supplies, other rails and other ties, to be taken on by the construction-trains.

And into Omaha were pouring, by boat up from St. Louis and St. Joe, and by wagon from Iowa, still other rails and ties and provisions, from the farther east. It was said that if a double line of dollar bills were laid, instead of rails, from Omaha across the plains, they would not pay for the cost of the roadbed alone.

The Indians were still bad. They had not given up. They ambushed grading parties whenever they could—killed stragglers and hunters, and ran off stock. The Pawnee scouts and the regular cavalry and infantry constantly patrolled the right-of-way, camped with the men, and tried to clear the country, before and on either side. But the construction-trains sometimes fought at full speed, or narrowly escaped a wreck.

Every morning the track-layer gang of the boarding-train piled out at reveille, the same as in the army; they marched to work, in columns of fours, at a shoulder arms, under captains and sergeants, stacked their guns, and were ready to spring to ranks again at the first order.

“B’ gorry, the same as a battalion o’ infantry, we are,” said Pat Miles. “An’ there was no better battalion durin’ the war, either. From Gin’ral Casement down to the chief spiker we got as good officers as ever wore the blue, wid five years’ trainin’ behind ’em—an’ there’s many a man usin’ a pick who’s fit to command a company, in a pinch.”

Little was heard from the engineering parties in the field. They were scattered all through the mountains, from up in Wyoming down into Colorado, and on across into Utah, beyond Salt Lake. In fact, last year the surveys for the best routes had been pushed clear to California—so as to be ready.

The parties that had come in, in the winter, to report and draw their maps, had gone out again in early spring for another season’s work. Some of the parties even had stayed out all winter, measuring the snow falls and learning the weather at the passes.

General Sherman, commanding this Military Division of the Missouri, which extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, had issued orders that the military posts should furnish General Dodge with all the soldiers who might be spared, so that the road and the survey parties should be protected.

Just the same, the surveying job was a dangerous job; ten and twelve miles of the survey lines were run, each day, and the chain-men and rod-men sometimes were far separated from the soldiers—and the chief of the party was supposed to go in the advance, to discover the easiest country.

Last year the mountains and the deserts on either slope had been pretty well covered. Now it was understood that the road was not to turn south for Denver and the Colorado Rockies—no good passes had been found; it was to turn for the northwest, instead, and cross the Rockies in Wyoming, by a pass that General Dodge himself had discovered in one of his Indian campaigns two years ago.

So onward marched the rails—that double line ever reaching westward. Back and forth, hauling the truck, Terry rode old yellow Jenny—and how many miles he traveled, to every one mile of track, he never quite figured out, but seemed to him that he already had ridden the distance to San Francisco.

“We’ll be after changin’ the base to a new Julesburg—as soon as the rails reach yon,” said the men.

“Sure, if it’s base o’ supplies ye mane, that’ll be changed before ever the rails get there,” was the answer. “Any day now they’ll be comin’ through—wid their gin mills an’ their skin-games an’ all on wheels, to be set up an’ waitin’ for our pay-car.”

And that was true. The railroad followed up along the north side of the South Platte River. The Overland Stage road followed up along the south side, with the six-horse teams and the round Concord stages plying over it between North Platte and Denver, on the Salt Lake haul. And stage road and railroad grade headed westward toward the old stage station at Julesburg.

It seemed likely that a new Julesburg would be the next supply base. It was about the right distance from North Platte, the last base, or ninety miles; for about every ninety or one hundred miles the supply base was relocated, farther along, at end o’ track.

Sure enough. The middle of June, when old Julesburg itself was in sight, two or three miles before, on the south side of the river there appeared a long procession of wagons, buggies, horses, mules, men, women and children.

“B’ gorry! Here they come, an’ there they go. Ain’t they kind, though, to be all waitin’ for us?”

The wagons were loaded high with canvas, lumber, and goods; men and women were perched atop, or riding in buggies, or upon saddle-animals. The procession looked like a procession of refugees from a war—there must have been over two hundred people. They certainly raised a great cloud of dust.

The track-gang paused to cheer and wave; the women and the men waved back. The graders on ahead waved and cheered, as the procession passed them, to ford the river again at old Julesburg and wait for end o’ track.

But Paddy Miles, the rugged Irishman, growled indignant.

“Bad cess to the likes of ’em. ’Tis hell on wheels, ag’in, movin’ on to ruin many a man amongst us. Sure, if the Injuns’d only sweep the whole lot from the face o’ the trail, I’d sing ‘Glory be! There’s a use for the red nagurs, after all.’”

The way these new towns sprang up was wonderful. The railroad sort of sowed them—and they grew over night like Jonah’s gourd or the bean-stalk of Jack-the-Giant-Killer. There was North Platte. Before the rails touched it, it had been nothing except a prairie-dog village. But in three weeks it had blossomed into a regular town.

Now part of its people were moving along, to tag the pay-car. 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.

In the morning there was revealed the tents set up, and the board shanties going up—a mass of whity-brown and dingy dun, squatted upon the gravelly landscape on the railroad side of the river.

Several graders had been killed, in shooting scrapes; the night at new Julesburg had been a wild one; the track-layers who were anxious to spend their money waxed impatient to arrive. As soon as the rails reached the sprawling tent-and-shanty town, on the third day, the terminus supplies were moving up, on flat-cars, from North Platte.

The big building used by Casement Brothers, the contractors, occupied a car by itself. It could be taken apart like a toy building of blocks or cardboard. All the sections were numbered; and were unjointed, piled upon a car, moved on, and set up again.

That was the case with a number of other buildings—stores and offices, and the like. Some of them were painted to look as though they had brick or stone fronts—but they were only flimsy wood. Why, anybody who wished to erect a home on a lot could buy the house for $300 in Chicago, and have it shipped, ready to be stuck together.

The railroad company owned the lands upon which these terminal towns or “base” towns were located. The company land agents sold or leased the town lots, and the speculators who acquired the lots ran the figures up as high as $1000.

The rails paused a few days at this new Julesburg, while the supplies from North Platte were brought up, and side-tracks were laid for switching. After supper the first night in, Terry and little Jimmie, his side-partner, went sight-seeing—like everybody else.

What a place—what an ugly, sprawling, dusty, noisy place, of tents and shacks and jostling people, flannel-shirted, booted track-layers and graders, blanketed Mexicans, even a few Arapaho Indians, attracted hither-thither by the shouts and songs and revolver shots, while candles, lanterns and coal-oil lamps tried to turn the dusk into day.

“The man over there is yelling ‘Hurrah for the wickedest town in America!’ Hear him?” half whispered Jimmie.

“It’s a heap worse than North Platte ever was,” Terry answered. “North Platte’s a division point and will be a city; but Pat says this town won’t last long. When the gamblers and whiskey-sellers move on with the rails, there won’t be anything left.”

Suddenly he and Jimmie met, face to face, General Dodge himself, with little General “Jack” Casement and a party, two of them in military uniform. The generals stopped short.

“What are you boys doing here?”

“Jist lookin’ ’round, sorrs,” stammered Jimmie, in his best brogue, with scrape of foot and touch of fingers to his ragged cap.

“You go back to the train. This is no place for boys,” General Casement ordered sharply. “I think,” he added, to General Dodge, “that I’ll instruct the police to keep all minors off the streets, at night, unless with their parents or guardians.”

“A good idea,” agreed General Dodge. “But I’ll relieve you of one boy, anyway. He goes along with me, I believe. You still want to go to the very front, do you?” he asked, of Terry.

“Yes, sir, if I can.”

“Well, you can, with General Casement’s permission. I’m on my way now. My party is camped a few miles out, beside the river. You’ll see the tents, in the morning. And you’ll find an old friend of yours with us: Sol Judy.”

That was good news.

“Is Sol going? Do you know Sol, sir?”

“Yes, indeed. Sol’s been my guide before. He mentioned you when we got to talking over the Plum Creek massacre. That was a close call, wasn’t it! And you lost your dog.”

“Yes, sir,” faltered Terry, with a little twinge in his heart. “I lost him. But he saved Bill Thompson and me. I suppose losing those men was worse.”

“They all gave their lives to the service,” said the general, gravely. “People will never know what it costs to build this road and keep it open. Now, we break camp at five o’clock tomorrow morning. You report to me here at Casement Brothers’ headquarters at six o’clock. Bring your campaign kit along, for we’ll be out all summer. We’ll provide a horse for you.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be there,” Terry exclaimed, rejoicing.

“How about this other lad?” pursued the general, a twinkle in his eye as he scanned the red-headed Jimmie Muldoon. “Does he want to go out into the Indian country?”

“No, sorr; plaze, sorr,” Jimmie apologized. “Sure, we have plinty Injuns where we be, an’ I’ll stay wid the Irish. Me father’s chief spiker, sorr, an’ me mother washes clothes, an’ me brother’s water carrier an’ I’ve another brother who’s like to have Terry’s job; so it’s the Muldoon family that’ll see the end o’ track through to Salt Lake.”

“All right,” the general laughed. “Stay ‘wid the Irish.’ You’ve a loyal corps, Casement. But both you boys go back to your train and keep out of trouble.”

With Jimmie, Terry was glad enough to beat a retreat to the boarding-train, set out a little way in the cleaner brush and sand, where the air was pure and the night was peaceful. A number of the men, also, soon had enough of “town,” and were already turning in, to sleep. But there was no sleep in new Julesburg. All night the hubbub and hurly-burly continued, in spite of the police stationed by General Casement.

However, tomorrow this would be left behind. Many a mile yet into the north of west stretched the grade, waiting for the rails; and beyond the grade itself stretched the surveyors’ location stakes; and beyond the line of location stakes stretched widely the desert and the mountains, where other stakes were being driven—and where Terry Richards was about to explore, in company with Scout Sol Judy and no less a personage than the bold General Dodge, chief engineer of the whole road.

George Stanton, somewhere out there, having fun while he chopped stakes and maybe even held the end of a surveyor’s chain, was likely to get the surprise of his life.

CHAPTER VII
OUT INTO THE SURVEY COUNTRY

It was a tremendous large party. In fact, it looked like a regular military excursion, instead of a survey trip, when in the early morning it moved out from new Julesburg (the “roaring town” was dead tired at this hour) and headed northwest up Lodge Pole Creek by the old Overland Stage road on the Oregon Trail.

There were two companies, B and M, of the Second Cavalry, from Fort McPherson, commanded by Captain (or Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel) J. K. Mizner and First Lieutenant James N. Wheelan, to ride the country and guard the long train of supply wagons. There was Surgeon Henry B. Terry, of the army medical corps—a slender, black-moustached, active man in major’s shoulder-straps. There were the teamsters and farriers and wagoners and cooks and what-not.

There were General Casement, and Construction Superintendent Sam Reed, and Colonel Silas Seymour of New York (the consulting engineer who was General Dodge’s assistant), and Mr. T. J. Carter, a Government director of the road, and Mr. Jacob Blickensderfer, Jr., an engineer sent from Washington by the President, and Mr. James Evans, the division engineer who was going out to examine the route to the base of the Black Hills range. There were General William Myers, chief quartermaster of the Department of the Platte, who was to inspect the site of a new army post on the railroad survey, and several surveyors who were to take the places of men that had been killed by the Indians.

And there was General Dodge’s own party, with notables enough in it to make a boy feel rather small.

Of course, the tall, lean man in buckskin was Scout Sol Judy, a real rider of the plains, always ready for Indians or anything else. He knew the country from Omaha to California.

The pleasant, full-bearded man who rode beside General Dodge himself was none other than General John A. Rawlins, chief-of-staff to General Grant, at Washington. General Rawlins was not well, and General Grant had asked General Dodge if he might not be taken along, sometime, on a trip, to see if roughing it in the Far West might not do him good. So here he was. He and General Dodge had been noted commanders in the Civil War, and were warm friends of each other and of General Grant, too.

The alert trim-bearded man in corduroy coat was Mr. David Van Lennep, the geologist, whose business was to explore for coal-fields and minerals in the path of the survey.

The tall heavy-set, round-faced boyish-looking man was Captain and Major William McKee Dunn, General Rawlins’ aide-de-camp, of the Twenty-first Infantry.

Another round-faced boyish young man was Mr. John R. Duff from Boston. His father was a director of the railroad company.

The tall slim man with side-whiskers was Mr. John E. Corwith, of Galena, Illinois, who was a guest of General Rawlins.

For Terry to get the names and titles straight required most of the day. General Dodge had introduced him in bluff fashion: “Gentlemen, this is Terry Richards, one of the company men who are laying the rails across continent. He’ll be one of us, on the trip.”

Beginning with General Rawlins, they all had shaken hands with him. But it was young Mr. Duff who explained who they were, as on his horse Terry fell in behind, to bring up the rear.

That was the place chosen by Mr. Duff and Mr. Corwith, the other civilian guest.

“So you’re out to see the country, too, are you?” queried Mr. Duff, genially. “What are you? Track inspector in advance?”

“I don’t know,” Terry admitted, a little uneasy in his faded old clothes. But clothes seemed to make no difference. “General Dodge said I could be his ‘striker’—that means help around his tent, and General Rawlins’ tent.”

“Heat the water for the bath, eh?” laughed Mr. Corwith.

“Shucks! No, Corwith! Nobody bathes on a trip like this,” retorted Mr. Duff. “Not unless we come to some hot springs. After a while the water’ll be as cold as ice—right out of the snows. Isn’t that so, Terry? Where’s your home town?”

“U. P. boarding-train, end o’ track,” promptly replied Terry. “It’s a traveling town,” he explained.

“I should say so. Ever been out much farther in this country?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve ridden on the stage part way to Salt Lake.”

“That must have been a great trip. But think of riding by railroad there! Whew! The stage took about ten days, didn’t it? And the railroad’ll do it in three! I was out to end o’ track last fall—on that big excursion from the East and Omaha. We started to go to the Hundreth Meridian, or 247 miles from Omaha; but you fellows built so fast that we kept going till we were thirty miles beyond.”

“Yes, sir. They all laid 260 miles of track in eight months, last year. This year General Dodge and General Casement want us to do 290, about. That’ll take us over the top of the Black Hills mountains.”

“But what’ll they do without your help?” asked Mr. Corwith, slyly.

“Aw, I don’t amount to much,” Terry informed, for fear they might think he had bragged. “I just ride a mule that hauls a truck-load of rails for the men to lay.”

“Don’t the Indians bother?”

“Some,” admitted Terry. “They kill the men they can catch. But they can’t whip the graders or track-layers in a regular battle, though.”

“When do you track-layers expect to reach Salt Lake?”

“In 1870, anyway. It’s 650 miles yet. Congress gives us till 1876 to meet the C. P., but General Dodge and General Casement are going through in half that time.”

“You’ll have to tackle the Rocky Mountains, though.”

“Y-yes,” said Terry. “But we’ll do it.”

“The Central Pacific of California have been building only forty or fifty miles in a year, in their mountains.”

“We can beat the Central. They have timber and supplies close where they’re working, and we haul ours clear across the plains; but Casement’s Irish can lick the Chinks any day,” scoffed Terry.

“Expect to beat the Central to Salt Lake, do you?”

“We’re going to meet them away beyond Salt Lake. They’ll come east as fast as they can and we’ll go west as fast as we can, and then we’ll both see.”

“Yes; and the Central Pacific say they’ll meet the Union Pacific on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, in Utah,” bantered Mr. Corwith.

“Well, they won’t. We’ll meet them before they’re out of California,” boasted Terry. “General Casement says he’ll put on 10,000 more men and be grading several hundred miles ahead, all the time. The mountains will give us ties. There are gangs cutting timber in the Black Hills now, and getting it ready. A railroad will be into Council Bluffs across from Omaha, right away, so we’ll get our rails quick from the East. We’ve got fifty locomotives, and 700 freight-cars, to do the hauling with, and next year there’ll be a lot more. The bridges are made in Chicago and shipped out all ready to be put up. Our men lay four rails every minute—just as fast as they can grab and run forward,” he added proudly. “And the spikers hit each spike only three times.”

“We can see that you’re an enthusiastic U. P. man,” laughed young Mr. Duff. “You ought to be on the board of directors, along with my dad. But the question now is, where are we going? Wonder if we’ll meet any Indians.”

“General Dodge plans to take General Rawlins through to Salt Lake, I understand,” spoke Mr. Corwith. “The surveys have been made, and he wants to check up. We cross the Black Hills by the pass he discovered two years ago, when the Indians chased him. He says it’s a remarkable route for a railroad—an easy climb to over 8,000 feet; if the Indians hadn’t forced him into it, he might never have known about it. But he made a note of it, and sent the surveyors out, and it’s all right.”

“How long before we reach it, then?”

“The Black Hills are 150 miles yet, I guess,” said Terry.

“Ever there?”

“No, sir. The old stage road and the Salt Lake trail went up around north of them. The stage road now goes south of them. There’s never been any road over the Black Hills, in here.”

“Well, hope we see some Indians, anyway,” chatted Mr. Duff. “But all these soldiers probably’ll scare ’em off. I’d like to be out with one of those surveying parties. Those are the fellows who have the good times.”

“George Stanton—he’s my partner—is out with one. He’s out with Mr. Bates,” Terry announced. “General Dodge said that maybe we’d find them.”

With the toiling wagons, they were several days in passing the many gangs of graders. The low huts, called “railroad forts,” of sod walls and sod or sheet-iron roofs only about four feet above the ground, were strewn for miles and miles in advance of the rails.

The old Overland stage road soon branched to the north, for Fort Laramie, and guided by only the railroad grade, the General Dodge expedition plodded on. The ties ceased, the farthest outpost of the graders’ camps was at last left behind, and presently the final squad of construction engineers engaged in running the line of stakes and levels, had been dropped.

Now only the open country of the high rolling plains lay before. The air was frosty, at night, but warm by day. The curious antelope constantly stared, with heads up, at the march, and skimmed away. They supplied fine meat, when hunted by the soldiers and civilians. General Rawlins appeared to be enjoying himself immensely, but he was not strong.

During the day the cavalry rode before and in the rear, and scouted on the flanks. The General Dodge party cantered in the advance. At night camp was pitched, in military order.

This seemed like home ground, to the general. He had explored through it to find a railroad route away back in 1855; and he had campaigned against the Sioux and Northern Cheyennes, hereabouts and beyond, in 1865. That was the time when the Indians had helped him to discover his pass.

A long line of dusky, frowning mountains was gradually getting higher and plainer in the west. These, said the general and Mr. Van Lennep, were the southern end of the Black Hills—the first barrier by the Rocky Mountains.

“I think that tomorrow we’ll strike Crow Creek,” spoke the general, tonight, to the party around the blazing camp fire. “That’s where we locate the next division point, at the eastern base of the Black Hills. I sent word to General Auger at Fort Laramie to meet us there. He has instructions from General Grant to locate a military post where the railroad locates its division point.”

“Then we climb the mountains, do we, general?” young Mr. Duff asked, eagerly.

“Yes, sir. Up we go. But it’s a very easy trail, by a long ridge. According to the engineers’ estimates the grade is only ninety feet rise to the mile. The country is smooth and open. As soon as the Sioux forced my detachment to follow down by the ridge, in ’65 when we were returning from the Powder River campaign up north, I knew that we had found the first passage of the Rocky Mountains. In fact, I told my guide, then: ‘If we save our scalps, I believe we’ve found a direct railroad pass from the plains.’ And as soon as I reached Omaha, I described the place to the engineers and my idea proved to be correct. In the morning I’ll show you the little saddle, on top, that we’ve named Sherman Summit, in honor of General Sherman.”

“And what’s next, general?”

“The Laramie Plains, watered by the Laramie River.”

“And then what?”

“A great basin, without any water at all. And the Bitter Creek country beyond that, where the water is worse than none at all.”

“But where do you cross the real Rockies—the big snow mountains?”

“Oh, before we drop down into the Salt Lake Valley. But we’re 6,000 feet up, right here on these plains. Sherman Summit of the Black Hills, at over 8,000 feet, will be the highest point reached by the railroad. There are several passes in the snowy range, of between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, that we can use. This Sherman Pass is the only one yet discovered by us that will take us over the front range. The company engineers spent two years in the field, exploring all the way from Denver up to the old South Pass of the Oregon Trail, looking for just this very thing; and then it was found by accident—thanks to the Indians.”

“Rather a joke on them, that when they tried to keep you out they showed you through,” laughed Major Dunn, the aide-de-camp.

“There’s something almost miraculous about it,” added General Rawlins. “But the Central Pacific hasn’t been as fortunate, I understand.”

“No, sir. They had a head start on us, but the Sierra Nevadas have fought them hard. While we’ve been laying 370 miles of track across the plains, they’ve been held to 120. They have an enormous amount of blasting and tunneling and trestle building. In 100 miles they’re obliged to climb from sea level to over 7,000 feet. It’s a big job and they’re not out yet. The snows there are heavier than in the Rockies.”

“Some people say the railroad across continent can’t be operated in winter at all, on account of the cold and snow in the mountains,” put in Mr. Corwith.

“Nonsense,” muttered Mr. Van Lennep.

General Dodge laughed.

“Oh, when the road is built, the operating will be attended to. American engine men and train crews who have fought Indians from cab and box car and caboose, and hauled supplies in spite of savages and weather and new roadbed will get the trains through, snow or no snow.”

This was the first of July. The next morning they rode on, and made noon camp on Crow Creek—named, General Dodge explained, not for the bird but for the Crow Indians. The camp was to be a camp for several days, or until the general had picked out the best location for the division point.

There was no sign of any railroad grade—except in the distance before, and behind, tall stakes with white rags tied to them: surveyors’ flags, planted this spring or last fall. So the grade was only waiting for pick and spade to awaken it.

“Those things extend clear to Nevady,” grunted Sol Judy. “Injuns look on ’em as heap medicine. They’re dead afraid to touch ’em. They’re leary of the way the surveyors can squint through a telescope set on three sticks, and set a flag further off’n it can be seen by an Injun eye. They used to call the general ‘Long Eye,’ and when he began to lick ’em, they got the notion he could shoot as far as he could see with his spy-glass.”

General Dodge had taken General Rawlings, Colonel Seymour, General Casement, Superintendent Reed and the Government officials, with an escort of the cavalry, to reconnoiter along the line. Mr. Van Lennep stayed to write up some geological notes, and the rest loafed around camp.

The Black Hills, bulky and dark and brooding, loomed near in the west. They did not appear so very high, because they were so big and rounded; pines on them gave them their name “Black.” Down here on the plains there were few trees; everything was whity-brown.

Sol jerked his head to the northward and spoke shortly.

“Here they come.”

“Who? The Indians?”

“Nope. Those aren’t Injuns; they’re troops—cavalry. General Augur and his escort from Laramie, I reckon.”

“What makes you think they’re soldiers, Sol?” questioned young Mr. Duff. “Maybe they’re Sioux.”

“I don’t think; I know,” Sol retorted. “Don’t you s’pose I can tell the difference ’tween a white man and an Injun, far as I can see?”

Sol’s eyes were the best in the camp; for when Mr. Van Lennep leveled his field-glasses upon the little bunch of moving figures wending down over the rolling ridge of the north, he pronounced them soldiers, sure enough.

They drew on. Presently the cavalry formed to receive them, and Colonel Mizner galloped out to meet them.

It was General C. C. Augur, all right, commanding the Department of the Platte, and an escort of a troop of the Second Cavalry, from the headquarters post, old Fort Laramie.

“Yes, by gosh, and old Jim Bridger! Hooray! Dod rot my cats!” And Sol, striding out, shook hands heartily with the guide.

“Jim Bridger! That’s the man I’ve been wanting to see,” exclaimed young Mr. Duff. “He and Kit Carson are famous, aren’t they? They’re the greatest scouts in the West.”

Sol Judy and Jim Bridger proceeded to squat and hobnob, while Terry and Mr. Duff—and Mr. Corwith, too—lingered near, curiously listening. General Dodge’s party returned in haste. Tonight all camped together. The general had about decided upon a site for the division town; but old Jim principally held the floor with his funny stories and quaint remarks.

He was a tall, wiry, leather-faced man; not so very old in years but old in experience. Had trapped beaver in the far West since 1823—had explored the Salt Lake in a skin boat in 1826—claimed to have been through the marvelous Yellowstone region years before it was known to white men—had been owner of the Bridger’s Fort trading post, in the mountains on the Salt Lake and California Overland trail until the Mormons of Utah had driven him out—had guided the army through Indian country; and withal was so full of funny stories that he could keep everybody in a roar.

He and General Dodge were great friends.

“These gents thought I couldn’t tell you fellows from Injuns, Jim,” complained Sol. “Yes, sir; and didn’t believe me till they leveled the glasses on you. Just as though I didn’t have eyes of my own.”

“Pshaw, now; that’s not a wrinkle to what I’ve had to put up with,” drawled old Jim. “When I was guidin’ the troops on that thar Powder River campaign, same time Gin’ral Dodge was out, I see an Injun smoke only ’bout fifty miles yon, t’other side a few mountains, an’ I reported to the cap’n. Says I: ‘Cap’n, thar’s an Injun camp yon, t’other side them mountains, an’ they’re watchin’ ye, like as not.’ ‘Whar, major?’ says he. ‘Right over thar by that ’er saddle,’ says I, p’intin’ for him. Wall, the cap’n looked through his spy-glass, an’ said he couldn’t see nary smoke. Then he reported to the gin’ral—Gin’ral Conner, that was—an’ the gin’ral he looked through his glass, an’ he couldn’t see. An’ thar was the smoke colyumns as plain as the nose on your face, only fifty mile away. So I didn’t say ’nother word, ’cept that it had come to a pretty state o’ things when a passel o’ paper-collar soldiers’d tell a reg’lar mountain-man that thar wasn’t smoke when thar was. But in two days some o’ Cap’n North’s Pawnees come in from a scout yonder an’ blamed if they didn’t say they’d located an Injun village precisely whar I’d seen that thar smoke. So all we had to do was to go over an’ get the Injuns, in the battle o’ Tongue River.”

“You must have wonderful eyesight, major,” complimented Mr. Corwith. “I expect you are used to seeing things.”

“Yep, arter forty years in the mountains a man gets used to seein’ things. But even then he can’t ’most always sometimes tell. Did ye ever hear about when I was in the Yallerstone? Wall, one time thar, I think I see a passel o’ Injuns in camp ’bout three mile off, an’ I reckoned they saw me; but I watched ’em a long time, kinder curyus, an’ they didn’t get any closer; an’ when I was sneakin’ ’round, durned if I didn’t run slap ag’in the side of a mountain, solid crystal, cl’ar as air, an’ three miles through. You see, them Injuns war on t’other side of it; an’ they couldn’t get at me an’ I couldn’t get at them.”

“That wasn’t the same mountain the Indians chased you around, was it, major?” slyly asked General Dodge.

“No, sir. But that thar was a great trick, wasn’t it? You see, gents, some Injuns got arter me, on the side of a mountain. So I jest run an’ run, afoot, ’round an’ ’round, like a squirrel on a stump, an’ they tuk arter. We all run an’ we run; and what with bein’ on a slant, like, pretty soon the down-hill legs o’ the Injuns’ ponies got stretched, tryin’ to keep their footin’; an’ when I seed, I made for level ground. Then the ponies couldn’t do nothin’ but run circles, their legs bein’ unequal; an’ I got away, easy.”

The next morning the site of the new division point was staked by Mr. Evans and surveyors, under direction of General Dodge. There did not seem to be much choice—the bare rolling plains looked all much the same, clear to the foot of the Laramie Range which was called the Black Hills; but he had figured closely. Crow Creek would supply water; Denver was about 115 miles south, Julesburg was 140 miles east—a branch line would be run down to Denver, and the trains from the east would change engines here, for the climb over the Black Hills. It would be a place for a junction, and for a round-house.

“I name it Cheyenne,” said the general, “for Cheyenne Pass, which you see to the north.”

“The military post will be just north, gentlemen,” quoth General Augur. “The War Department approving, it will be named Fort D. A. Russell, in honor of Major-General David Allen Russell, a gallant soldier who won honors in the Mexican War and was killed in battle September 19, 1864, where his conduct gained him the brevet of major-general.”

“Wall, this hyar business o’ locatin’ towns whar thar ain’t people seems to be rather pecoolar,” drawled Jim Bridger. “A feller hyar with last month’s pay in his pocket couldn’t spend a cent. Anyhow, thar’s plenty elbow room. That’s the best thing about it.”

“Wait till the news gets to Denver, and Julesburg. In six months you won’t be able to turn around, where you’re now standing,” smiled Mr. Van Lennep.

“Listen!” General Dodge sharply ordered.

Distant in the south there welled the faint reports of volleying fire-arms.

“Injun scrimmage, shore,” pronounced old Jim. “Fust an’ original inhabitants are on hand.”

“Sounds like an attack on a wagon train,” rapped the general. “Mount, gentlemen.”

“Here come the cavalry. Hurrah!” cheered young Mr. Duff.

The soldier escort were straightening in their saddles, awaiting command; but from the camp a bugle had pealed, and Troops B and M, led by Lieutenant Wheelan and Surgeon Terry, were tearing in columns of fours across the plain, following the battle signals.

CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL DODGE SHOWS THE WAY

“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.

THE WAGON TRAIN

“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.”

CHAPTER IX
MORE BAD NEWS

It was the easy Rattlesnake Pass that finally led out from the farther edge of the great Laramie Plains, and down to the North Platte River.

“There’s the last of the main streams which flow eastward, men,” remarked General Dodge, as from the top of the pass they emerged into view of the valley below. “Once across that, and over the next plateau, and we’ll be into the unknown country.”

“Can we see the Overland stage road, general?”

“It keeps to the base of those south hills, on the headwaters of the side streams, for fording.”

“I should think that the railroad would follow the stage road, by the trail already made,” spoke Mr. Corwith.

The general smiled.

“No. The grades are too sharp and there are too many ravines and gulches, too many streams, too many detours. A railroad always seeks the path of least resistance; and we’re limited by the Government to the grade of 116 feet to the mile, at the maximum. The Union Pacific will keep to the open country, and do away with curves as much as possible. Sharp tangents cut down speed. Lack of water doesn’t bother a railroad, if wells for tanks can be drilled, at intervals. In fact, the fewer streams to cross, the better.”

A month had gone by since from Sherman Summit they had descended a thousand feet into the Laramie Plains. It had been a continuous hunting and camping trip with the Indians at safe distance. The general had traveled by easy stints, to favor the health of General Rawlins, and let Geologist Van Lennep make his investigation for coal and ballast. A courier from Sanders had brought a dispatch saying that Mr. Evans’ wife was ill, in the East, and he had turned back.

The Laramie Plains had proved to be a great basin or park, watered by trout streams, tinted with red soil and rocks, and green brush and trees, broken by strange buttes and spires, and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It stretched fifty miles wide, and 100 miles long, in northwesterly direction. The railroad line was to follow it and take advantage of such an open way.

Several times they had signs of other parties—the Browne surveying crews, General Dodge pronounced them. Now and again an abandoned surveyor’s flag fluttered from bush or pole.

“Who’d ’a thought when Jim Bridger and I trapped our beaver and fought for our meat in here, that the iron hoss’d be rampaging through before ever we lost our scalps,” Sol Judy mused. “That is, if we don’t lose those same scalps in the meantime.”

They followed down a stream which emptied into the Platte, and camped this night on the banks of the North Platte itself, which flowing north from Colorado turned for the east and joined the South Platte 300 miles away, at North Platte Station on the railroad, in Nebraska.

“And next year at this time the railroad will be here, I guess,” Terry ventured. “Wonder if the river knows.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” Mr. Corwith mused.

“And in another year the rails will be climbing those mountains that look like cloud banks,” added young Mr. Duff.

“Your eye-sight’s improving, young man,” Sol joked. “You’re spying the main Rockies; and if ’twarn’t for those clouds I reckon you could look another hundred and fifty miles, into Utah.”

Sol had been scouting around, and had found traces of a deserted camp down stream a short distance. The general was quite certain that this had been a camp of the Percy Browne surveyors and escort.

“Camp’s about three weeks old, I judge,” Sol reported.

“Hoo-ee-ee!” sounded the high call, through the dusk.

“White man, that,” Sol uttered. “Yep, and there they are.”

Across the Platte there were two or three horsemen, who had united in the “Hoo-ee-ee.” Now here they came, fording and swimming. General Dodge beckoned them in, and met them as they rode forward, dripping.

He and Colonel Seymour, the consulting engineer, held a short confab with them. They all turned for the camp.

“That’s Frank Appleton, Percy Browne’s assistant,” Superintendent Reed exclaimed. “Wonder if anything’s gone wrong again.”

“Well, men don’t swim cold rivers for nothing,” drawled Sol, who was standing and warming the tails of his army overcoat.

The General Dodge squad arrived at the big camp fire. The general’s face was grave; so was Colonel Seymour’s. Everybody at the fire waited intent—General Rawlins, lying under a blanket to rest, half sat up.

The new-comers were two surveyors and a cavalry trooper. They and their horses appeared worn to the bones. The two surveyors dismounted stiffly, to advance to the fire, with a haggard smile and a brave “Good evening.” The trooper led the horses aside, for unsaddling and picketing out.

“Gentlemen, permit me to introduce Mr. Francis Appleton, and Mr. Bane, of the Percy Browne party,” spoke the general. “Mr. Appleton was the assistant engineer; now he is in charge of the party. He brings word of the loss of his chief. Percy Browne, a young engineer already at the top of his profession and one of my right-hand men, has been killed by the Sioux.”

“What! Another—and this time Browne!” gasped Mr. Blickensderfer.

“I sorter felt it,” remarked Sol.

“Where did that happen, and how?” queried General Rawlins.

“Can you tell them about it, Frank?” suggested General Dodge.

Engineer Appleton—he was young, too—sat down and stretched his legs and hands to the blaze.

“It happened about two weeks ago. We were running a line on the main divide, near Separation, about fifty miles west of here, or at survey station 6,801, when Mr. Browne left us, to reconnoiter in the basin country farther west. He’d found the maps of the region were wrong—they did not cover all that territory, especially a new basin that we call the Red Desert. The Salt Lake stage road skirts the edge of it, on the way to the Bitter Creek desert.

“Mr. Browne took eight of the cavalry escort and some pack animals. We were to work on a line at the east edge. It seems that he had almost crossed the Red Desert, when a band of 300 Sioux, who were making south to attack the stage stations, surrounded him and his escort. The men succeeded in fighting their way to a little hill, and there they forted, and held the Sioux off from noon until after dark. Just at dusk a ball had struck Mr. Browne in the stomach, and put him out of action. He knew he was done for, so he ordered the soldiers to leave him and break for safety; but they wouldn’t do it.”

“What! Soldiers leave their officer? Never!” rapped Colonel Mizner. “Not the Second Cavalry men—nor any other men, either.”

“And they didn’t,” asserted Mr. Appleton. “They refused to obey Browne’s orders. They let the Sioux stampede the horses and mules, which seemed to satisfy the red-skins, who drew off. So this same night those eight soldiers made a litter of a blanket slung on carbines, and afoot they carried poor Percy fifteen miles through the sage-brush and the sand to LaClede stage station on the Overland. They didn’t save his life, though, for he died soon after they got in with him.”

“A gallant deed,” said General Rawlins. “I’ll see to it that it’s brought personally before General Grant himself. We must have those soldiers’ names.”

“The news was telegraphed from the stage station to Sanders,” continued Mr. Appleton, “but of course General Dodge had passed through, before that. The soldiers found us, where we were waiting for Mr. Browne to return. I went ahead running a line according to the instructions, until my party became pretty well exhausted through lack of water and provisions. I was coming in to Fort Sanders, for more supplies and for further instructions, and sighted your fires, here. I guess that’s about all. The rest of the party are about forty miles west. They’re short of water, and animals, and unable to move forward—but they hate to quit. With a little help we’ll push right along, as Mr. Browne had intended, and finish out the survey according to his plans.”

“By Jiminy! That’s the stuff!” applauded young Mr. Duff.

“Yes, sir. The survey shall be carried out. We’ll enter the Browne basin,” declared the general. “We’ll give Mr. Appleton and Mr. Bane a day’s rest here, while I check over with them. Unfortunately all of Mr. Browne’s notes were lost when the Indians attacked him. But we’ll march on, to the Appleton party ahead, fix them up, and proceed to find the Bates party, too. Nothing has been seen of them, Mr. Appleton says.”

The North Platte flowed through a wide and shallow valley of sage-brush and reddish gravel, blotched by bright green cottonwoods and willows, with a scattering of small pines and cedars on the slopes. The river had to be forded; but the wagons were tugged through, and they all toiled up the west slope to the top of a broad plateau.

“The beginning of the Bitter Creek plains,” General Dodge uttered. “Any streams in here, Frank?”

“We discovered none, sir,” Mr. Appleton answered. “That is, none now flowing. There are numerous dry courses.”

The high plateau stretched onward into the west. It was of reddish gravel, plentifully cloaked with sage, like the rolling swells of a mighty grayish sea, and now and again blotched with the white of alkali, like the patchy froth of a sea. Sharp buttes, like islands, rose in the distances around, breaking the surface. Altogether, it was a lonely sight.

“How far are your party, Frank?”

“We’ll reach them tomorrow, sir. There’s a plain trail—my own trail, and the lines we ran.”

The party were all right, and waiting patiently for water and horses. The general decided to send them back to the North Platte, to rest and refit from Fort Sanders; but he took Mr. Appleton, as a guide to the great basin which Mr. Percy Browne had entered.

He and General Rawlins and Mr. Appleton led, with Terry and Sol Judy close behind; the rest of the party followed; the wagon train labored in the rear, while the cavalry bobbed up and down on either flank, riding dusty and sunburned, but watchful for Indians.

Indeed, dusty and sunburned were all: the once smooth faces of Major Dunn and Mr. Duff had sprouted beards, Terry’s face was parched and roughened, and everybody had the appearance of old campaigners.

It was hard on General Rawlins. The water in the casks had been divided with the survey party; that in the canteens was warm; and General Dodge had ordered that the casks and the canteens be tapped just as seldom as possible.

“I’d give my commission for a drink of good water,” suddenly spoke General Rawlins. “But I don’t suppose there is such a thing.”

“You shall have it, general,” answered General Dodge. “If you’re able, we’ll ride ahead of the main party and see what we can find. Mr. Appleton and Sol can bring them on.” He turned in his saddle and swept the group with keen eye. “Who’s with us? You’ll want your aide, of course. All right, Major Dunn. Then I’ll take my own aide. Come along, Terry. Gentlemen, we’ll have fresh water waiting for you, when you catch us.”

Weaving among the outcrops of red and gray rock, and the clumps of silent sage, while the gravel crunched under hoof and the sun beat hotly above, they four rode for an hour, leaving the cavalry and wagon train farther and farther behind. Every draw was dry. General Rawlins began to droop in his seat. He was not strong—had consumption; but he was plucky, for he was a soldier.

“I think we’ll do better to spread out,” General Dodge finally directed. “Four abreast. But each of us must halt on the top of every ridge and swell, until the others are in sight. We can’t exercise too much care, in this kind of a country.”

They rode for still an hour, into the west. The Browne survey had been through here—Terry himself saw the trails, here and there, and the flags and stakes; but pretty soon he lost them. His course, on the right of the searching line, took him where the only traces of life were the jack-rabbits.

Then, dipping down into another of the gravelly draws, he noticed a narrow trail swinging through the middle of it. His tired horse pricked its ears, and quickened its pace. A coyote trail, this—yes, marked by antelope hoofs, too; evidently going somewhere. An antelope trail usually led to water, if followed far enough. If the water happened to be near—then, hurrah! It would be great luck for a boy to find water when General Dodge, the explorer, and General Rawlins, chief-of-staff of the United States Army, both were looking for it. So Terry hopefully pressed forward, in the narrow antelope trail.

The draw turned a rocky shoulder; a couple of coyotes lifted their sharp noses, and were away like tawny shadows; Terry’s horse eagerly nickered; and here, near before, there was a spot of green in the desert dun.

A spring, sure enough!

Terry hauled his horse about—“General Rawlins first, old fellow. But you’ll get some”—and forced him up the side of the draw, to spread the good word.

One after another the men saw him, and in they came, answering his signals. General Dodge was nearest.

“What is it? Water?”

“Yes, sir. We found a spring.”

“Good! Where?”

“Straight down in this draw, sir.”

“Sweet water? Did you taste it?”

“No, sir; I didn’t taste it, but it looks sweet. The coyotes and antelope have been drinking it.”

“Rawlins!” shouted the general. “Come along. Here’s water.”

General Rawlins came. So did Major Dunn. Following Terry, in they went.

“General Rawlins is entitled to the first drink, I believe,” said General Dodge, huskily, as they reined their horses around the little spring.

“You fellows are as thirsty as I am. Who found it? This boy? Then the finder is entitled to the first drink.”

“He’s declined. Drink, man, or it’s liable to disappear.”

They gravely watched General Rawlins throw himself down and quaff.

“Whew!” he gasped, pausing. “It’s a miracle—cold and sweet.”

They all drank—General Dodge, Major Dunn, and Terry last; they let the horses drink.

“I told you that a boy would be handy to have in camp and on the march, general,” slyly reminded General Dodge.

“I feel as though he had saved my life,” and General Rawlins smiled. “This water is the most gracious thing of the whole march, to date. There’s nothing that takes the place of sweet water, when a man is thirsty. If my name is ever placed upon a map, I hope that it will be applied to a spring.”

“Your wish is granted at once, general,” laughed General Dodge. “Here is the spot, and I name it Rawlins Springs. The line of the railroad will run very close to it, I think—we’re about the right distance for a townsite. Within a year there’ll be a Rawlins Springs town here.”

“Well, if the town’s anything like Julesburg, they’ll be drinking other fluids than water, I’m afraid,” General Rawlins smiled.

The cavalry and wagon train were signaled in, and camp was made at Rawlins Springs, near where today is situated the city of Rawlins, Wyoming, on the first of the railroads across continent.

“Now, if you’re only lucky enough to find the Bates party, and your friend George Stanton——!” young Mr. Duff proposed, this evening, to Terry.

That was so. Sol Judy and Mr. Appleton declared that the country on ahead was much worse. George was somewhere in it—and Terry began to worry a little.

CHAPTER X
A MEETING IN THE DESERT

“The roof of the continent, gentlemen.”

It was the second day after leaving Rawlins Springs. Mr. Blickensderfer, the government representative; Mr. Carter, the director; Colonel Seymour, the railroad expert, General Casement and Superintendent Reed had turned back yesterday, for the Black Hills again. They had taken an escort and a couple of wagons. So now the party were formed of only General Dodge, General Rawlins, Geologist Van Lennep, Mr. Corwith, young Mr. Duff, Engineer Appleton, Sol Judy and Terry, accompanied by Colonel Mizner, Lieutenant Wheelan, Surgeon Terry and the cavalry and teamsters.

From Rawlins Springs on across the high plateau there had been a gradual steady climb, according to the general; until here, this late afternoon, he made the startling announcement:

“The roof of the continent, gentlemen.”

“You mean this is the ridge dividing the waters that flow east from the waters that flow west?”

“Yes, sir. The Continental Divide, formed by the Rocky Mountains.”

“Well, it doesn’t look it,” complained young Mr. Duff. “It’s too flat. I expected to see more of a ridge. This is nothing but a long hump. Are we higher than Sherman Summit of the Black Hills?”

“No. Sherman Summit, at 8,250 feet, is the highest point on the proposed line. The main divide, here, is scarcely more than 7,000. That is one beauty of the survey as run by Mr. Browne before his death. We cross the Continental Divide at its lowest point, by an easy grade. South in Colorado we would have to cross at 12,000 feet; and north we would have to cross at 9,000 feet.”

“Speaking of ridge-poles, young man,” Sol put in, “you cast yore eye ’round and you’ll see where the ridge-poles were used. But once in a while the builders of this roof had to make a spot to sit down on.”

And truly, the view from this immense “hump” was superb. Far in north and south and west uplifted the jagged snowy ranges—the real mountains of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, with this great bare plateau stretching between like a broad trough. Behind, or east, they could look back upon the Laramie Plains, shimmering below.

“Mr. Appleton says that tomorrow morning we’ll sight the Percy Browne basin of the Red Desert,” Mr. Corwith remarked, after supper, in camp.

“How far ahead?”

“As soon as we cross this divide. Then we drop right into it.”

General Dodge had been correct. Within a few miles from camp, in the morning, they were going down hill. The Laramie Plains were cut off, so was much of the plateau itself, but the mountains before, and hazy in the distance, rose more and more, with a flat desert gradually creeping out from their base. After all, the “hump” was a rounded ridge—a sort of welt.

It fell away, with a long slant—and suddenly the party halted short, craning forward, almost speechless, to the pointing arm of General Dodge.

“The unknown land,” he uttered. “The Browne basin, and the Red Desert.”

“Where poor Percy gave up his life,” added Engineer Appleton.

“Yes, and where many another good man has ended his trail,” added Sol Judy.

From the foot of the slant, onward below there extended, now fully revealed, so vast a basin that it might have been the floor of a dry ocean. They were gazing down into it, as if from the side of an amphitheater. Lofty mountains, some of them a hundred miles away, surrounded it with a fringe of cloudlike crests. The clear air rested upon it and gave it a setting of crystal.

There were abrupt little cone-like peaks, patches of white, patches of red, patches of dark brush; and over all a wondrous blue sky without a break, through which the hot sun rode high.

The basin looked enchanted and mysterious.

“The unknown land,” repeated General Dodge, thoughtfully. “The Overland Stage road crosses, for the Bitter Creek country, beyond. But there are no other trails. There may be no streams, either. Those white patches are soda and alkali, of course. The red is granite and sandstone—good ballast stuff for a roadbed. Lacking any streams flowing west, we’ll have to travel by compass, and save our water as much as we can. But we’ll go in; see what Percy found, and maybe find Bates.”

“So that’s where your friend is, is it?” inquired Mr. Duff, of Terry.

“Yes, sir, he’s liable to be. But I hope he isn’t.”

“So do I,” agreed Mr. Duff. “That country certainly spells Desolation with a capital ‘D.’”

“I told you before that a jack-rabbit always makes his will and kisses his family good-by, when he starts in from the edge of that country,” reminded Sol.

“Do you expect to build a railroad right through, general?” queried General Rawlins. “No easier route?”

“None that’s short and of the proper grades. 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.”

Down they all went, into the basin. It was rougher and even larger than it had seemed from above. There were many bare red-rock ridges, cutting the surface—many smaller basins between, white with alkali and nasty scum; many strange pedestals and figures carved by wind and sand; but no water except in poisonous stagnant pools.

It was no place for George Stanton, or any other human being.

This first evening they made dry camp. The rocks and gravel were growing redder; and where after storms the water had soaked into the soil it left red washes of caked mud. A weird, glowing landscape this was, as if blasted by a wizard’s spell.

In the morning the general, Engineer Appleton and Sol rode to the top of a rock rise, to survey around. The general peered long through his glasses—handed them to Mr. Appleton, and Mr. Appleton peered. Sol squinted.

They turned their horses and came in at a gallop.

“Injun sign out yonder,” cried Sol.

“Colonel! Oh, Colonel Mizner!” summoned the general. “We’ve sighted what may likely be a party of Indians, on before. Whether they’ve seen our camp smoke, I can’t tell. We’ll go ahead, of course; and if you’ll kindly make arrangements accordingly, we may wipe out a few scores. I’m sure we’ve got a good fight in us.”

“I only hope they’ll give us a chance to show it,” answered the colonel. And—“My compliments to Lieutenant Wheelan, and tell him I’d like to speak with him,” he said, to his orderly.

Away ran the orderly. Lieutenant Wheelan was delighted— “It’s been a long trip without a scrimmage. The men are famished for a brush or two,” he cheered.

With wagon train closed up, guarded well, and with cavalry riding the flanks in compact lines, the march proceeded. Sol, the colonel, and General Dodge and General Rawlins held the advance.

“How far are those beggars, I wonder,” said young Mr. Duff. “Bet they’ll run away.”

“Only ten miles, but the glasses could scarcely pick them out, among the rocks,” replied Mr. Appleton.

“The general sees ’em again!”

The advance had halted, to scan with the glasses. Sol galloped back.

“They aren’t Injuns. They’re white men, and act like they’re in trouble. They’re afoot an’ leading hosses. Fetch on yore water, for we’ll probably need it.”

“There’s the Bates party, I’ll wager,” rapped Mr. Corwith; and all dashed forward.

General Dodge and Major Dunn had forged ahead, but Terry, wild with fears, pelted close after. The horses’ hoofs rang on the rocks, and thudded in the reddish sand and gravel.

The slowly toiling figures were down, flat, as if exhausted; one struggled to get up, staggered blindly, and fell again. The general arrived first, was off his horse in a jiffy, to kneel and raise the figure against him. He quickly unsnapped his canteen, and poured from it and dabbled with his handkerchief.

“To the next, major,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of this one.”

But with a cry Terry stopped short, and tumbled off. The figure against the general’s knees was George Stanton!

Yes, George Stanton—and his own mother scarcely would have recognized him. However, Terry knew George; a fellow learns not to be mistaken in his brother or his chum.

“That’s George Stanton, general!” he gasped. “That’s my pardner—the boy I’ve talked about. Is he dead? George! Hello, George!”

“No, not dead; but pretty near gone, from thirst. This must be the Bates party, then. You tend to him—keep his face and mouth wet, but don’t give him too much water, at once. He’ll be all right, soon. I’ll pass along to the others.”

Terry took charge—holding George tenderly, shoulders up, off the hard rock and hot sand, and sopping his face and dribbling into his half open mouth.

Once, George had been a wiry, snappy, black-eyed package of nerve; now he was wasted to a framework of bones, his skin was drawn tight and parched, his lips were shrunken apart and his tongue, black and stiff, almost filled the space between.

“George!” Terry repeated. “You’re all right. We’ve found you. I’m Terry—I’m your old pard Terry. Swallow this water. There’s plenty more.”

The rest of the advance party had passed along, to administer first aid. The surgeon and some of the cavalry arrived.

Doctor Terry, the army surgeon, paused an instant, beside “Doctor” Terry the amateur, for a swift survey.

“Keep up the work, boy. He’ll be all right—he’s coming ’round.” He laid finger on George’s withered wrist, for the pulse. “Good! Pulse regular. Wet his wrists, occasionally. Who is he? Know him?”

“Yes, sir. He’s George Stanton—the other boy I was looking for.”

“Great Scott! That’s luck, sure.” And on passed the doctor.

George’s eyeballs rolled, his lids fluttered, and he groaned. He clutched for the canteen.

“Not yet, old fellow. I’m tending to you. Too much at once might make you sick.”

George stared up, vacantly; then he actually grinned, as his head swayed.

“Where you come from?” he asked, thickly.

“Oh, just riding through, looking for you. You’re found.”

“Water. More. Darn it, lemme drink,” complained George. That was exactly like him—peppery and obstinate.

Beyond, the General Dodge squad and the soldiers were working over other members of the survey party, who had been scattered in a straggled line across the desert. George wriggled and groaned more and more, and suddenly sat up, of himself.

“Why don’t you let me drink?” he scolded.

“You have been drinking, George.”

“It never got down. It soaked in part way.”

“I’ll ask the doctor.”

Surgeon Terry was coming back, on a tour of inspection.

“Aha! How’s the boy now?”

“He wants to drink.”

“Ten swallows. And in five minutes another ten swallows. Will that suit?”

George nodded and eagerly reached for the canteen.

“I’ll count, and at ten you quit,” Terry instructed.

He grabbed the canteen from George’s lips at the eleventh swallow, and George grudgingly yielded.

“Where’s Mr. Bates? Did you find Mr. Bates?” he asked, still a bit thickly. “And my dad?”

“Yes. They’re coming ’round. They’ve asked after you, too. You’re all going to be all right. Tongue more limber, eh? What happened to you fellows? Get lost?”

“I guess so,” George confessed. “Trying to run a line across—for railroad—no water—no water ’t all—three days—awful dry——” and his voice fell off. “Don’t I get ’nother drink?” he wailed.

“Let him have it,” bade the doctor, and turned back.

It was the grandest thing in the world to watch George drink, and drink, and swell with the moisture, and grow stronger.

“Whew!” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “I was like an old buffalo carcass lying out for a year or two. Nothing but hide and bones. Now I’m loosening up. Golly, but I’m glad to see you. We all thought we were goners, except Mr. Bates. He said we’d get through, but he was worse off than any of us. I was sorry for dad. Wish I could see ’em. How far’s the railroad in?”