Bartlett, Muskoka and the Ledges operator went forward on the run. The latter dropped to his knees and placed his ear to the pipe. At the quick smile of comprehension which came into his face a great cheer went up. It was immediately stilled by a gesture from the operator, and in tense silence he caught up a stone, tapped back a signal, then read aloud Wilson’s strangely telegraphed words of the safety of the men below, their situation, and the means to be taken to reach them.
And just at sunset the bedraggled but joyful, cheering party of rescuers and rescued emerged from the entrance—Wilson to a reception he will remember as long as he lives.
The most important result of Wilson’s courage and resourcefulness, however, was an interview Alex Ward had that evening at Exeter with the division superintendent. Following a recital of Wilson’s feat at the mine, Alex added: “You said last week, Mr. Cameron, that I might suggest a third operator for the Yellow Creek construction ‘advance guard’ of operators. I’d like to suggest Jennings, sir.”
“He is appointed, then,” said the superintendent. “Go and tell him yourself.”
XVIII
WITH THE CONSTRUCTION TRAIN
On a newly-made siding parallel to the main-line tracks, and in the center of a rolling vista of yellow-brown prairie, stood a trampish-looking train of weather-beaten passenger coaches and box-cars. In the sides of the latter small windows had been cut, and from the roofs projected chimneys. North of the train, to a din of clanking, pounding and shoveling, a throng of men were laying ties and rails, driving spikes and tightening bolts, in the construction of further short stretches of track.
It was the Yellow Creek branch “boarding” and construction train, and the laying of the sidings of the newly-created Yellow Creek Junction was the first step in the race of the Middle Western and the K. & Z., some miles below the southern horizon, for the just-discernible break to the southwest in the blue line of the Dog Rib Mountains—the coveted entrance to the new gold fields in the valley beyond.