“We’ll all be there,” Pat proclaimed. “For we’ll have nothin’ else to do. Wid only nine miles yet to lay we’ll all be on vacation soon; an’ if they don’t finish their tin miles, the Irish will stand ready to help ’em along to the meetin’ spot.”
“How far out are they?” asked George.
“Eighteen or twenty miles. That wreck stopped ’em.”
Up Promontory Point the U. P. rails labored, for the finish; with trestles and curves, and several switchbacks that doubled like the letter “S”—for there were grades of 110 feet to the mile, and the cuts and fills were many. Water had to be hauled in tanks, again, for cooking and drinking. In fact this finish was one of the toughest pulls in all the 1,080 miles.
On April 27, they topped the last rise. This summit of Promontory Point was a flattish plateau, dropping off at the other side into the desert. The grade led almost straight across—a mile and a half or two miles there was a collection of tents and shacks, and the men paused to stare.
“The meetin’-place? Is that yon the meetin’-place, ye say?”
“Right, me bullies,” Pat encouraged. “’Tis the ind o’ 550 miles o’ rails laid in thirteen months, b’ gorry, not countin’ the eighty that’s been wasted. So we’ll knock off ’arly, an’ tomorrow we’ll make in—an’ be frish for the nixt mornin’ when the Cintral Chinks start to lay their tin that they’re braggin’ beforehand about. Sure, that’ll lave ’em four miles yit. Like as not they’ll nade help wid their finish.”
“It’s a quare meetin’-place, where there’s nothin’ to meet,” some of the men laughed. “S’pose we tiligraph Congress, just sayin’ that th’ U. Pay.’ll kape a-goin’ an’ save th’ C. Pay. th’ bother.”
“Not much! Tin miles o’ track are they to lay in wan day, remember, wid us a-lookin’ on.”
Mr. J. H. Strobridge, the C. P. superintendent of track-construction, finally had sent word to Mr. Reed, the U. P. superintendent, that on April 29 the Central would lay their ten miles of track, from a point fourteen miles short of the meeting-place. He invited the U. P. to send witnesses—President Leland Stanford, of the Central Pacific (and ex-governor of California), and other C. P. officials would be there.