CHAPTER X
THE WINNING GOAL
“Oh, gee!” said Dickie Maxwell, plaintively, sitting on the edge of his tent bunk and tugging at a water-stiffened lace-boot to get it on, “only a few more days of the bully old railroad fight and then we’ll be back again in civilization, wondering if we really lived this big, free life here in the mountains for three solid months, or only dreamed it.”
Larry Donovan, struggling into his working corduroys, was staring out through the open tent flap at a scene which was so soon to be a thing of the past for Dick and himself.
For background there were the high, forested steeps of the Eastern Timanyonis; in the middle distance the brawling Tourmaline, at this point in its course little more than a noisy creek, split the wide valley in halves. Between their sleeping-tent and the river, and farther down the slope were the shacks and tents of a railroad construction camp, with great piles of cross-ties and rails strung beside a newly laid track. And across the river ran the line of another railroad, over which busy material trains were shifting and pushing forward to the front.
“I’ve been thinking about the wind-up, too,” Larry said soberly. “It’s been a great summer for me, and I owe it to you, Dick. If you hadn’t persuaded your father to let me come along——”
“Owe nothing!” scoffed Dick; “cut it out, old scout—cut it all out. I wouldn’t have been one, two, three on this ‘cubbing’ job if you hadn’t been along. Besides, you’ve paid your way; you’ve been batting a fine, large average in this game with the O. C., Larry Donovan, and you know it—you, with your ‘I was just thinking’.”
“The race game, yes; it’s about over now,” Larry put in thoughtfully. “Only three miles to go to reach the gold camp, and we’re neck and neck with ’em on the final lap. But we’re going to beat ’em. They’ve got that big rock-cutting to finish two miles this side of Ophir; and our grade’s just about ready for the steel.”
“Wait a minute: don’t you be too sure!” Dick warned. “There’s one more hurdle for us to jump—up yonder at the mouth of Blind Mule Gulch.”
“That mining claim, you mean?”
Dick nodded.