Not until the U. P. grade had climbed Promontory, to join with its grade in the desert beyond, and the C. P. grade was touching Ogden, did the fresh news break.
Pat received a telegram, read it, and burst into a flurry.
“It’s all off! The orders be for us to join ind o’ track wid the Cintral ind atop o’ Promontory Summit—an’ shame on us if we let ’em bate us there. A holiday in Salt Lake City wid full pay for iv’ry man o’ yez if yez’ll step on the tails of the tie-layers wid your rails.”
So it was to be a race for the meeting at Promontory Summit! Distance to go: Union Pacific, twenty-eight miles; Central Pacific, thirty miles. The telegraph was already in operation, waiting to announce the victor, to the world.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE U. P. BREASTS THE TAPE
“The C. P. say they can lay ten miles of track in one day and Mr. Durant has telegraphed $10,000 to say they can’t do it!”
This was the excited greeting by George Stanton, when Terry met the pay-car in the latest “roaring” town of Blue Creek, at the base of Promontory Point on the U. P. side.
Blue Creek station was not really a town; it was more of a higglety-pigglety railroad camp, but it seemed to know no law. The Home Cooking restaurant appeared to be about the only decent place there. Nevertheless, there it was, just the same, arrived in its last move on the long journey from Cheyenne, more than 500 miles. The “Heroines of the U. P.” had set out to keep near their “men folks,” and bring “home” to them whenever possible. Old 119, with Engineer Richards in the cab, was still plying back and forth, in the fore; and George’s father was expected any day, called in from the Nevada surveys.
As soon as the two companies, directed by Congress, had decided to join ends o’ tracks upon Promontory Point, all advance grading and surveying had ceased. The C. P. had graded eighty miles east from Promontory Point, or almost to Echo City; the U. P. had graded 220 miles west from Ogden, or to Humboldt Wells, and had laid eighty miles of track this way from Humboldt Wells; but there was nothing doing now. The work had all been wasted.
So the majority of the graders had been discharged. A number of them still hung around, though, waiting for the tracks to join. They helped to form the U. P. camp of Blue Creek; and on the desert over beyond the Summit they helped to form the on-coming C. P. camp.