“Whew!” sighed George, as if the very thought made him tired. “Wonder when the next big show will be.”
“Which?” Terry asked. “Pat counting the ties with his nose? There are over 26,000 of them.”
“No. The joining of the tracks. The C. P. have only four miles to go.”
“The wedding of the rails, you mean?” prompted Major Hurd. “May 10 is the date suggested, I understand. That will give both roads time to arrange for a program and for bringing in the people who’ll wish to come, from the East and West. General Dodge is talking the matter over with Governor Stanford now, so as to report to New York.”
“Thank you. We’ll stick around, then, I guess,” George asserted. “I’ll have to stick, anyway,” he added, to Terry, as they two rode ahead, “till the men are all paid off. And maybe so will you.”
“Haven’t been paid, myself, for a month,” laughed Terry. “But that doesn’t count. I’m going to see this thing through. The wedding of the rails is liable to be a regular humdinger of a celebration.”
CHAPTER XX
THE WEDDING OF THE RAILS
“Have ye seen the grand tie that them Californy people are givin’ toward the big doin’s tomorrow?”
Paddy Miles put the query to Terry, in the U. P. construction camp on the border of the Salt Lake near Blue Creek. The weather of the past few days had turned raw, blustery and rainy. Both the U. P. and the C. P. camps had been moved from the high windy plateau down to lower ground. Now they were out of sight of each other.
“No. What kind of a tie, Pat?”