THE “TARRIERS” MAKE A RECORD
“HURRAH! Everybody come out to end o’ track tomorrow. We’re going to
throw a scare for sure into those Central gangs.”
That was Terry, bursting in through the back doorway of the Home
Cooking restaurant, in this last new base and division point, of Bryan,
far western Wyoming. Time: Friday evening, late in September, 1868.
“What kind of a ‘scare,’ Terry?”
“Track-laying. Another record. The Central matched our six miles in a
day by claiming seven. General Casement is out yonder, with General
Corse and a bunch of other big-bugs, and they’re feeling good; and
tomorrow General Casement is going to show us off and put a stopper in
the Central’s brag.”
“How far away are you now, boy?” George asked.
“Eighteen miles. They’re setting mile-post 877, at a side-station
named Granger. We’ve just crossed the line into Utah (for Utah had not
yet lost so much of its northeast corner) and that’s one reason we
celebrate. Pat says he’ll lay eight miles as a mark for the ‘C. Pay.
haythen’ to aim at.”
“I don’t believe it can be done,” Terry’s father declared.
“Yes, it can. Sure it can. Look at what we’ve been laying right along
in the desert: two and three miles, and four, and once six, in mighty
bad country.”
“I’ll be there, Terry,” Virgie cried. “I want to see.”
What a spring and summer that had been! And what a fall and winter it
was to be! The great race was in full swing.
In middle April the U. P. track-layers had finally broken loose from
winter quarters in Cheyenne, and since then they had not wasted a day.
At the start, the grade had not yet been clear of snow, nor the ground
thawed, and it took twenty-four days to make thirty-three miles to the
Laramie River just below Fort Sanders across the Black Hills.
A third of Cheyenne flocked here, to the new base named Laramie City.
Even before the track got in, Laramie City boasted the title “Gem City
of the Mountains,” had 500 shacks and 3,000 people, and was “roaring.”
The freight trains were close behind end o’ track, and the passenger
trains from Omaha began to roll in again.
In rolled, on wheels, the Cheyenne take-down buildings and the gambling
and saloon and side-show outfits--and among the very first of all the
outfits to report, was the Home Cooking restaurant. It had proved so
popular that, as George said, it was given a “front seat.”
Terry and his father, at the farther front, were glad indeed to welcome
it. But the grading gangs were on ahead, and the track-layer gang
stayed only long enough to lay the switches and sidings. Then the rails
leaped forward, on the trail.
“’Tis a long way yet to the ind o’ the 500 miles, lads,” reminded
Paddy; and with him urging, and extra wages promised for Sundays and
holidays, the track-layers scarcely straightened their backs except at
darkness.
The track flew through the length of the Laramie Plains and found a
bridge ready at the North Platte River almost on the very spot where
young Engineer Appleton had swung across with the news of Percy
Browne’s death. Leaping the river the rails paused to plant another
terminal and supply base just beyond brand-new Fort Steele.
One hundred and twenty-six miles in sixty days. That was doing
better---- “But we’re a bit soft still,” Pat apologized.
The supply base was named Benton. It proved to be the “roaringest” town
yet--a seething town of red dust, of North Platte, Julesburg, Cheyenne
and Laramie gamblers and saloon keepers, and of night turned into day.
The river was three miles away, east, and water for the town people
had to be hauled by wagons, price ten cents a bucket; but many of the
inhabitants cared little for water.
Benton grew in a twinkling to 5,000 citizens; take-down business blocks
were put together and set up in a day; it was said that two boys with
screw-drivers could set up an imitation “brown-stone front” house
(which arrived all boxed and numbered), in three hours. One gambler
outfit ran the Big Tent--a canvas building 100 feet long and forty feet
wide, and floored for dancing. But in three months Benton was less than
Julesburg; there was not even a station.
For the rails had again sprinted. They passed right through the ravine
of Rawlins Spring, dipped down into the Red Desert at the place where
George and the rest of the Bates party had been rescued, and following
the Percy Browne survey they never stopped for water or anything. The
construction-train brought the water from behind, in tanks, until wells
were drilled; wagons carried it forward to the grading gangs. Much
of the water was rank with alkali and soda; it made the men ill, and
foamed and encrusted in the engine boilers; but the Red Desert had no
terrors for the U. P. gangs.
Long before, the reconnoitering surveyors, led by the division chief,
had picked out the landmarks of hills and streams, as guides for the
location surveyors. The location surveyors pressed after, with their
maps and charts, to drive the stakes--at four, eight, twelve miles a
day. Eating the stakes, 100 miles at a mouthful, the grading gangs,
8,000 and 10,000 strong, tried to keep fifty miles ahead of end o’
track. In their rear, ten and twenty miles ahead of end o’ track, the
bridge crews and culvert crews plied hammer and saw. Behind them, and
four or five miles ahead of end o’ track, the tie-layers and ballasters
tugged and tamped. And end o’ track pursued with 500 other men and
fifty teams.
In a perfect cloud the freight and supply wagons toiled back and forth
beside the grade. They formed a line of alkali dust 150 miles long,
stirred up by the hoofs of 5,000 horses and mules. And east of end o’
track were the puffing boarding-train and the busy construction-train,
while Jimmie Muldoon and his little brother dashed down and back,
fetching the loads of rails.
The Red Desert never had seen the like. In fact, the whole United
States was getting excited. Every night the news was flashed by
telegraph to New York: “The Union Pacific today laid two (or three, or
five) miles of track,” and it was published in large headlines across
the first pages of the New York papers.
General Casement lived constantly at the front; his brother Dan
Casement worked day and night moving the supplies out of the
warehouses. General Dodge made trip after trip from Omaha and by stage
and horse across the mountains, even clear to Humboldt Wells of Nevada.
Mr. Silas Seymour, the New York consulting engineer, was out; so were
Mr. Hoxie and Mr. Snyder, who had charge of the operating of the road,
from Omaha. And in mid-summer there had come a very distinguished party
indeed, who inspected from Fort Sanders to end o’ track.
These were General U. S. Grant, himself, the chief of the Army; General
Sherman, General Phil Sheridan, half a dozen other famous ’way-up army
officers, Mr. Thomas C. Durant, of New York, the vice-president of the
Union Pacific company and the man who raised the funds; and Mr. Sidney
Dillon, again--the chairman of the board of directors.
They rode in a special Pullman car, and the track-layer gang eased up
long enough to cheer them as they tumbled out and gazed about.
The Lincoln car was being kept busy chasing the construction, and
accepting the track in sections of twenty to forty miles at a time, for
the Government.
End o’ track traveled too rapidly for it. Far westward, in western
Nevada the Central was putting in its best licks, too. One day its
track-gang laid five miles of rails, and wired the news to New York,
as a record. Pat was told, and grunted; and that same week the U. P.
gang laid six miles in a day. The Central heard, and retorted by laying
seven miles at one rush.
“An’ what o’ that?” growled Pat. “Sivin, you say? Wait till we get our
toes set in a likely place, an’ we’ll hand ’em eight, as sugar for
their tay.”
In the middle of September another supply base had been planted--Green
River, 150 miles from Benton, and 845 miles from Omaha.
Three hundred miles of track, counting sidings, laid in five months of
mainly “bad weather an’ worse wather,” as Paddy said. Average, sixty
miles a month. The news was flashed to New York.
When the pay-car pulled in once more, Terry and George celebrated again
in the Home Cooking restaurant. Pat himself was well pleased. So were
General Dodge and General Casement. That had been a hard stint, in the
desert, but the desert was conquered.
Only a thousand people gathered at Green River. End o’ track was
traveling too fast also for some of the toughs who sought to make
“roaring” towns--and some of them had been killed on this westward
trail. But the Home Cooking restaurant bravely kept up the march.
It was a great institution--this Home Cooking restaurant. The two women
were being called the “Heroines of the U. P.” Everybody respected
them, and they still did a splendid business in good coffee and pies
and doughnuts--“like your mother used to make.” But Terry and George
hid the suspicion that they stuck it out on purpose to make a home for
their men-folk.
George, because he was attached to the pay-car, which had its
headquarters in the terminals, drew the big end of the bargain. He
might eat and sleep “at home” almost every night. His father, though,
out on survey, didn’t get in at all.
As for Terry, he and his father came in every night, as long as they
might, between terminals. Old 119 and its crew--Engineer Richards and
Fireman Sweeny--had been transferred from the boarding-train to the
leading construction-train; and this was great, because while they were
within twenty miles of the terminal they could scoot back, for supper
and breakfast and a visit.
Virgie was having the time of her life, riding up and down track in the
engine--bent upon being the “first passenger across,” she insisted.
Green River did not last long. It was the best built of any of the
roaring towns; quite a number of its buildings were adobe, or dried
clay, put up to stay and to be warm winter quarters; but the railroad
decided to locate its division point farther on, and staked out another
town, Bryan, fourteen miles.
The bridge over the Green River was waiting; the Red Desert and the
Bitter Creek Desert had been crossed at last; the Wasatch Mountains
ahead were already whitened by the first snows; and presently Green
River town was left behind, deserted. Everybody--including the Home
Cooking restaurant--moved on to Bryan, and Bryan “roared.”
“I’ll go to end o’ track tomorrow with you, Terry. I want to see,”
repeated Virgie.
“I’ll be there, as usual,” Terry’s father laughed, grinning. “You can’t
lose Virgie and me and 119.”
“It’s pay-day. So I’ll be there with the pay-car, you can bet,” George
asserted.
“Well, you want to start mighty early, then, or we’ll be out of sight,”
bragged Terry. “They’ll begin at seven sharp and work right through to
five-thirty with only half an hour nooning. That’s ten hours. Can’t you
come, ma; you and Mrs. Stanton?”
“Oh, dear, no! We’ve got people to feed.”
“Maybe we can slip away once, between times,” promised George’s mother.
“I can take you up, on one trip of the construction-train,” Engineer
Richards proposed. “By the way they talk, they’ll keep me busy hauling
iron. Eight miles of track calls for something over 300 car-loads of
material, and they haven’t near enough iron on their dumps.”
The day dawned fine and snappy. When at six o’clock the construction-train
pulled out with Terry and Virgie in the cab, its cars were black with
people as well as rails and spikes and fastenings. A large part of
Bryan was bound to end o’ track, also.
Paddy Miles already was busy, marshalling his gang on the outskirts of
Granger siding. Little General Casement, his overcoat collar turned
up around his whiskers, stood nervously puffing a cigar. His party
of guests were with him. The chief of them was Major-General John M.
Corse, an old army friend. They all had been entertained by General
Casement--hunting and fishing and seeing the country, and making the
grading-camps their base. They looked as though they’d had a gay night,
celebrating in advance; but no amount of work or fun ever phazed the
little general.
“Sure, is that your load--mainly peoples?” Pat hailed, of the cab, as
he ran down the line of flat-cars, inspecting. “Get out the way, iv’ry
wan o’ yez, an’ stand clear, or we’ll be ’atin’ the iron from under
yez.”
The boarding-train stood upon the siding, to leave the way open for the
construction-train to back on up in the wake of the trucks. The trucks
were loaded and waiting. Jimmie Muldoon, his face as red as his hair,
with excitement, sat his bony horse, expectant; his brother (likewise
red) sat old Jenny, the rope taut. Old yellow Jenny had grown gaunt and
stiff in the service; many and many a mile after mile had she galloped,
but she was still game.
The long corrugated row of ties stretched westward, waiting, too. The
nearest graders were staring back as they worked, to see the start. At
the very end o’ track there was a dump of iron, in readiness. Every
little help counted.
General Casement had been looking at his watch.
“Go!” he barked.
“Lay to it, lads,” shouted Pat. “We’re off. Now show them Cintral
haythen a touch o’ the Irish!”
“Hooray!” the crowd cheered.
A file of the men attacked the end dump. Two by two they seized the
rails and hustled them forward, in pairs. “Down! Down!” “Whang, whang,
whangity-whang!” The fish-plate squads sprang with bolts and wrenches.
In a few moments there were two streams of the rail-carriers--one
double line trotting forward, one double line running back. End o’
track fairly leaped ahead. The dump became a far carry, when at a
signal from Pat old Jenny and her truck-load came charging, with
one-legged Dennis riding atop and Jimmie Muldoon’s brother whooping for
passage.
“Hooray!”
The truck was emptied rapidly, as it rolled on, yard by yard, to keep
up with the track. Now it was tipped to one side, and on charged Jimmie
himself bringing fresh supply. Back galloped old Jenny.
General Casement was timing.
“Faster, men,” he rapped. “Down with ’em. Hit ’em hard. Be ready with
those fish-plates, boys. Make every move tell. We’re out for a record.”
The men who had been carrying the rails turned to ballasting. So
fast the track advanced that the crowd of spectators were constantly
jostling onward, advancing also. George arrived, breathless, from the
pay-car. Superintendent Reed had come up with it; so had Dan Casement,
the general’s brother and partner.
“How far’ve they gone now?” George panted, his eyes snapping.
“I dunno. We’ve just started. But look at ’em hustle, will yuh!”
answered Terry.
Virgie danced impatiently, craning and cheering.
“I guess they’ll lay ten miles, won’t they?” she implored.
“Aw, what’s the matter with you?” George rebuked. “That’s just like a
girl. No gang can lay ten miles in a day.”
“Mr. Pat’s gang can, though, maybe,” she retorted.
The men were sweating. Steam rose from their bended forms. Old Jenny
and the truck horse were sweating, pushed at top speed back and forth.
The clang of the rails and the whang of the sledges never faltered. End
o’ track leaped westward, toward the distant graders. The dumps were
melting and disappearing.
“Look out! Here comes the train!”
At exactly the right moment old 119, with Terry’s father and Fireman
Bill Sweeny gazing rearward from throttle and bell, pushed the
construction-train on up over the new track as far as it could. Its
extra large crew worked madly to throw the iron overboard into more
dumps, nearer at hand.
Out puffed the train, gathering speed, for another load. Right on its
heels Jimmie Muldoon tore with his truck, to the farthest dump again.
There was no delay.
What with the constant pressing forward, all eyes upon the rails as
they were laid, it was hard to keep posted.
“How far’ve we gone now? How far’ve we gone now?” appealed George,
foolishly.
“How do I know? Gee whiz!” Terry rebuked. “I forget where we started
from. You ought to count the truck-loads. It takes about ten to a mile,
doesn’t it?”
“Yes; but I’ve lost count,” George complained.
“So’ve I,” confessed Terry. “Anyway, we’re sure traveling. Granger’s
getting out of sight.”
Time flew like the end o’ track. With shrill whistle the
construction-train backed in again, ready. It scarcely seemed possible
that the round trip had been made so soon. The old dumps were
vanishing; the last was almost gone; on came the train, rear end first;
over went the iron, with a noisy clangor; and back started sturdy 119,
dragging her rumbling empties.
On her next trip she brought Terry’s mother and George’s mother.
“Here come our folks,” George cried, spying them as they hastened
forward.
“How far?” they queried. That was the universal question: “How far?”
“About three miles. We’re almost at the third mile-stake. We’ll pass it
in a minute or two.”
“Are you coming back to dinner when we go?”
“’Tisn’t noon yet, is it?”
“No, but it will be soon.”
“Aw, shucks!” Terry uttered. “We can’t leave for dinner. Not this noon.
We’ll eat here, with the gang. We’ve got to be on the job. And so has
dad.”
“That’s what he says,” sighed his mother. “But seems to me you can take
time to eat at home.”
“We couldn’t do it in half an hour. Might be missing something,” Terry
explained. “There’ll be plenty grub here.”
“I’ll stay,” Virgie declared. “I don’t want to miss anything, either.”
The busy Pat had glimpsed them with the corner of an eye.
“Work hard, boys,” he urged. “The Heroines o’ the U. Pay. are watchin’
yez. A fine big doughnut to the crew that lays the last pair o’ rails
in the eight miles!”
The construction-train emptied. The two mothers returned on it to
Bryan. The three-mile stake had been passed, and the four-mile stake
was drawing nearer. General Casement had been looking at his watch. He
was right at end of track, all the way on.
“Time!” he barked.
“Toime, men,” echoed Pat.
They instantly quit work and straightened up wearily. The general
tucked his watch into his pocket.
“Three and three-quarter miles, and we’ll better that this afternoon,”
he said, to his party. “I’ll win my thousand dollars, gentlemen. We’ll
finish out our eight miles, and I’ve another thousand to say so.”
“Golly!” George blurted. “He’s bet a thousand dollars on it.”
“Well, I reckon he’ll win, all right,” answered Terry. “The gang’s just
getting limbered up. Come on, you and Virgie. Let’s hunt grub.”
The cooks had coffee and meat and potato and hot-bread ready. The
squads were flocking to their messes.
“We’ll eat with Pat,” Terry proposed; and so they did, Virgie having
the seat of honor.
“We’ll make it, we’ll make it,” Pat assured. “Sure we’ll make it. Ain’t
we got to stick up a mark for them Chinks to aim at? Yes, an’ ain’t the
papers out east waitin’ wid their big type, to tell all the world about
it? Aye, we’ll make it. An’ if I know the gin’ral, then that thousand
dollars’ll go as ’asy as it comes to him, an’ iv’ry man’ll have a bit
to cilibrate on.”
Twelve-thirty! “Time!”
“Hit ’em ag’in, lads!” yelped Pat.
“Down! Down!” “Whang! Whang! Whangity-whang!”
A portion of the crowd had gone back to Bryan for dinner. Number 119
brought them in again, with the iron. Back and forth plied gaunt old
Jenny and the bony nag her partner, hauling the trucks. Back and forth,
on haul ever longer, plied the construction-train. End o’ track,
followed by the General Casement party and the crowd, ever shot onward.
Mile-stake Four was passed; and in record time, Mile-stake Five; and
Stake Six; and when the sun was low over the crests of the Wasatch
Range, Stake Seven!
“Hurrah! Seven miles! Nobody’ll beat that, anyhow.”
“Wan more, now!” rasped Pat, hoarse with bossing at top speed. “Wan
more, an’ yez can stop an’ have the rist o’ the day off.”
“You’ve got the time, but no time to spare,” snapped General Casement.
He was getting nervous.
“Aw, they’ll make it,” said Terry, to George and Virgie. “But I’m sort
of tired, myself. We’ll have stood around for eight miles, by night.
How you feeling, Virgie?”
“I’m all right.”
“It’s toughest on Jenny. Look at her. She’s about all in,” spoke George.
That was the truth. Old Jenny’s yellow hide was dark and dirty and dank
with sweat. Her nostrils flared, her ribs heaved, her eyes were wide
and bulging, her breath sounded wheezily, and as she toiled down and up
again, kicked vigorously by Jimmie Muldoon’s brother, she frequently
stumbled.
“Her legs are giving out,” Terry pronounced. “Poor old Jenny. She’s
come a long way.”
“Guess _so_,” George agreed. “They ought to let her quit, after today,
and put her on a pension.”
The eight-mile stake was in sight; the men were on their last spurt.
The sun had set behind the Wasatch. That made no difference. The sun
set early, these days, here.
“Down! Down!” “Whang! Whang! Whangity-whang!” The brisk chorus never
ceased; the men never faltered. Some of them, too, staggered and
stumbled, but they didn’t miss a step or a blow. They all were wringing
wet. Several had lost their hats--they didn’t pause to pick them up.
“Wonder what time it is now,” George remarked.
“I dunno. Must be five o’clock; feels that way.”
“This is a mighty long mile!”
“Sure is. It’s going to be a close shave.”
“Well, I guess they’ll make it, all right,” said George, hopefully.
“Will, if Jenny holds out.”
Jenny was standing straddled and trembly, her long ears lax and her
head hanging. Her rider scarcely could budge her, between hauls. But
the truck was empty, her rope had been hooked on to the rear end, the
truck was tipped aside to let Jimmie Muldoon by, it was tipped back
upon the track, her rider kicked her in the ribs, and she groaned and
started.
“Give that boy a pair of spurs, somebody,” called a voice from the
crowd. Jenny broke from her shamble into a gallop, and went laboring
down track. Jimmie Muldoon’s nag stood heaving--near spent, himself.
The men snatched the rails off. Working fast--“Down! Down!”--they bared
the truck and end o’ track reached out, for the eight-mile stake.
“Tip her! Tip her!” For the truck was empty and Jenny’s truck was
nearing.
“Come on! Hurry up!” And Pat frantically waved his arm.
“What ails ye?” he bawled. “Put your heels into her ribs.”
“Bite her ear, boy!” That was mean advice.
Old Jenny tried to respond, as the crowd yelled and her rider pummeled
her with hands and feet. She galloped again--but no use. Suddenly she
swayed aside, blindly; and down she pitched, all in a heap; struggled
an instant, to rise; rolled over and lay stiffening right across the
track. Jimmie Muldoon’s brother rolled also, but he got up.
“Oh!” cried Virgie, covering her eyes with her hands. “Jenny’s dead. I
know she’s dead.”
“Come on!” exclaimed Terry. He ran; George ran; Pat ran; the crowd
flocked, whooping and laughing.
“T’row her off’n the track. For the love o’ the saints, t’row her off,”
panted Pat. “She’s blockin’ traffic.”
A dozen men toiled, grabbing her by the legs and head and turning her
over.
“Iron! Where’s the iron!” That was the call from end o’ track.
Now the rope had been unhooked and with one-legged Dennis putting his
shoulder to the load, a dozen men swarmed against the truck and began
to roll it forward.
“Whoa’p! That won’t do.” General Corse had laughingly objected. “You’re
getting outside help. Casement. It isn’t in the bargain.”
“Let the truck alone. Bring on another animal--horse or mule, but bring
it on,” stormed General Casement, watch in hand. “Quick, now.”
Pat yelled and waved and danced. People worked fast, but it seemed
another long time before a white horse had taken Jenny’s place; and
leaving her wet, muddy body lying, the truck rumbled on.
Virgie was still standing in place, her fingers pressing her eyes tight
shut.
“Is Jenny dead?”
“I’m afraid she is, Virgie,” answered Terry.
“Then I want to go home,” she sobbed.
But what was that? General Casement had shouted--“Time!” the men had
thrown down their tools, and were waiting and gazing and mopping their
faces. The truck had not been a quarter emptied, and the stake was
still on ahead.
“We couldn’t have made it, anyway, mule or no mule,” announced the
general, calmly. “But we did our best. It’s a record to be proud of.
The Central will know we’re on the job, at this end.”
“They’re quitting!” George gasped.
“How far do you want to call it, general?” asked General Corse.
“Seven miles and five-eighths, sir. That won’t miss it more than a
foot. And I also call it a mighty good day’s work. Come on. Let’s go
to supper.” With that, General “Jack,” champion track-layer of the
continent, turned on his heel and strode off. He didn’t seem to care
anything about the thousand dollars, or about Jenny.
“Close onto eight, annyhow,” Pat puffed. “’Twill be somethin’ for them
pig-tails to chaw on.”
The tired men gave a cheer, and looking for coats and hats surged to
meet the boarding-train or else to their camps. The crowd raced for
the construction-train, and a ride back to Bryan. Helping the weeping
Virgie, Terry and George hastened for the cab of 119. They passed
Jenny--or what had been Jenny. She was dead; she didn’t give a sign of
knowing who they were, although her eyes were staring wide open.
“Don’t suppose there’s any use in trying to bury her,” George
proposed, as they paused a moment, while Virgie ran on blubbering.
“Nope. Who’d lend a hand at it? What does the U. P. care about a horse
or mule?” Terry demanded, thickly.
“She died in line of duty, just the same; like old Shep was killed in
action.”
“I know it. But that’s happening to something or somebody, about every
day; and doesn’t matter, as long as the rails move forward.”
Remembering the handcar crew and the freight-train crew, and Percy
Browne and Surveyor Hills (who was younger still), and now counting
Shep and Jenny, it did seem as though the road was taking a heavy toll.
There were many others, besides--somebody or something almost every
day, as Terry had said.
Each bestowing upon Jenny’s cold hide a last pat, they followed after
Virgie.
“Reckon we’ll have to break the news to Harry, back at Laramie,”
remarked George. Harry Revere had got as far as Laramie City, and was
lightning-shooter there, now.
“Yes, reckon we will,” Terry mused. “I’m glad he wasn’t here to see.
He’s powerful fond of old Jenny.”
Somehow, they all felt rather sober, that night in the cosy Home
Cooking restaurant. But it had been a great day. Seven and five-eighths
miles of track in the ten hours. Whew! And Jenny had not been to blame.
General Casement was satisfied. He had said that they wouldn’t have
made the eight miles, anyway.