“Red as rale mahogany, an’ polished like satin, an’ set wid a silver plate. ’Tis the last tie, to be laid under the inds o’ the last rails.”
“Where is it?”
“Over yon in the C. Pay. special car, on the sidin’ back o’ their ind o’ track. Yes, an’ ’twixt you an’ me (but ’tain’t to be repeated), there are two spikes o’ solid gold, wan of ’em topped wid a big nugget, an’ worth $400, come along wid it, an’ two silver spikes, from Nevady an’ Arizony. Minkler’s guardin’ the car, wid a squad o’ track men, but I dare say if you go over an’ tell him I sent you, he’ll let you have a peep.”
This was Sunday, May 9. The ceremony of laying the last rails had been up in the air, so to say. President Stanford’s special car bringing a party of C. P. officials and their guests, including the governor of Arizona and dignitaries of Nevada, had arrived on Promontory last Friday, the seventh, thinking that the ceremony was to occur on Saturday, the eighth.
But General Casement had met them at U. P. end o’ track with the Superintendent Reed special coach, to tell them that the U. P. guests could not possibly get in from the East before the tenth. So he had taken them back to Ogden, on a sight-seeing tour of the mountain country.
However, San Francisco had began to celebrate, anyway. Omaha and Chicago and New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and other eastern cities were making ready. They awaited only the word.
The Central had laid their four miles of track, lacking a trifle. Like the Union Pacific, they had stopped one pair of thirty-foot rails short of the meeting-place.
They had renamed their station of “Victory,” and changed it to Rozel. They had set up a sign-board at either end of their ten-mile stint, to announce to overland passengers: “Ten Miles of Track in One Day.” Their eight rail-carriers—Mike Shay, Pat Joyce, Tom Daily, Mike Kennedy, Fred McNamara, Ed Killeen, George Wyatt and Mike Sullivan—who had toted all those ten miles of rails, without being spelled once, were still the heroes of the day.
Having nothing especial to busy him this Sunday afternoon, Terry straddled his horse and rode up to the summit, to see the wonderful tie and the precious spikes.
The summit of Promontory Point was pretty well deserted, today, except for the little collection of tents and shacks forming the “town” of Promontory. The Central people had started a short siding, but had quit, over Sunday. Down at the U. P. camp Pat was darkly hinting that this C. P. siding would never be finished, now.