“Where’s th’ C. Pay. track?”
“Only nine mile north’rd ’round the base o’ the mountains, to Ogden, lads,” Pat cheered. “Hooray! Lave the dollar-a-day haythen to their gradin’ an’ their bits o’ rice, for they’ll have mainly their trouble as their pay. Their rails are a hunderd miles yit out on the desert t’other side them high ridges. Wan more sprint for us, an’ there we are, wid ’ase.”
This night there was much excitement in the boarding-train and the camps pitched alongside.
“We’ve bate ’em! We’ve bate ’em! Nigh 500 miles in under tin months ag’in their 400, an’ the dead o’ winter ketchin’ us in the mountains, to boot!”
Three days of rush; and the first week of March, this 1869, Paddy Miles’ track-construction gang entered Ogden. Distance from Omaha, 1033.4 miles.
In rolled the pay-car, with George aboard, his eyes snapping.
“Did you see those Chinamen?” he demanded. “Did you have any fight?”
In rolled the freights, and the first passenger train. Already the Government had accepted the track as far as the Thousand Mile Tree.
George and Terry climbed to a hill-side high above Ogden. Below, the track gangs and the tie-layers were celebrating; the Mormon citizens joined in. Whistles blew—the hoarse siren of old 119 rose victorious, and the whistle of the boarding-train engine tried to out-do. It was a great event, but many eyes were peering off into the northwest, like the eyes of the junior pay department.
“Can you see the C. P. grade?” queried George.