It was the voice of Paddy Miles, construction boss, and also the present “conductor” of the construction-train about to answer a hurry call sent up to Wasatch station from end o’ track, for ties and iron.
Wasatch station, at mile-post 966, had marked end o’ track on New Year’s Day, this 1869. It was eleven miles from Evanston, the supply base, and seven miles on from the sign-board which on the east side said “Wyoming” and on the west side said “Utah.”
But since New Year’s end o’ track had advanced to Echo City, twenty-five miles down Echo Canyon, and was still going, although slowly.
That had been a tough job, to get onward from Evanston. First, the sidings at Evanston were laid, in the deep snow; and just beyond Wasatch, in order to enter the pass of Echo Canyon, two trestles, one 230 feet long and thirty feet high, the other 450 feet long and seventy-five feet high, had to be built, to cross side gulches, and a tunnel 770 feet long—the longest tunnel on the line—had to be bored through sandstone, and frozen clay even harder.
When he learned that the railroad was not to touch Salt Lake City, President Brigham Young of the Mormons had refused to lend any help; but Superintendent of Construction Sam Reed had argued with him, in friendly fashion, and had proved to him that Ogden was the best point.
So President Young had fallen in again, had sent men and teams and supplies, and with Mr. Reed himself overseeing matters on that division the work was being pushed.
“An’ sure, ain’t we got to hustle?” appealed Pat. “For I hear tell that those yaller spalpeens on the C. Pay.’ve jumped ahead o’ their own gradin’ by a matter of a hundred miles an’ are startin’ in on a new division entoirely, so’s to get into Ogden first.”
“Yes. But Mr. Reed has sent some of our own graders 150 miles out, to grade into Humboldt Wells while the C. P. are trying to grade into Ogden,” laughed Terry.
“It’s a game two can play,” Pat admitted. “An’ there’ll be another game if those Chinks get in our way, wance.”
The trestles were still being put in and the long tunnel blasted. To pass around, a temporary road had been laid, in a sort of zigzag—and “Z” it had been named—or series of switchbacks, down from the ridge that divided Wasatch, in the Bear River Valley, and Echo Canyon. That had been quite a job, too; the descent was very sharp—in fact, nearly all the way to Ogden there was a sharp descent, through several canyons, where the roadbed clung to the canyons’ sides.