“That’s exactly what I told her. But, for that matter, none of these New York ‘look-sees’ have any business there.”
As it came about, there were no hindrances on the run up the canyon from Pine Gulch. After a few miles of the turnings and twistings in the echoing gorge, and past the great shale slide with its bulkheading of piles and planking, the canyon widened to become a high-pitched, upland valley; and at the upper end of this valley, where more of the “narrows” began, lay the actual working front.
Taking it for granted that he would have to pilot the special back to Pine Gulch after the visitors had made their inspection, Brannigan ran the 717 in on the lower end of one of the two side-tracks which were laid about half a mile below the cliff-sentineled upper gorge where the rockmen were drilling and blasting.
Presently the one-car special came along on the middle or main track, stopped opposite the side-tracked pilot engine, and the men of the sight-seeing party got off. There was some little emphatic talk, and then Mr. Ackerman came over to the 717.
“The gentlemen want to go on up to the rock cutting,” he said to Brannigan, who was standing in his engine gangway. “I’ve told them that it isn’t safe to take the Pullman and that heavy passenger machine any farther over the unballasted track. We’ll take the men of the party on an empty flat-car, and leave the women here in the Pullman. You know the track and what it will stand—and the grade—and Johnson doesn’t. Since you’ll have to push the flat ahead of you, I want you to go up and take Johnson’s engine and get the flat out of this string of loads.”
The switching problem thus set for Brannigan was not complicated, though it involved a number of movements. At its beginning the passenger locomotive and its car stood on the middle or main track. On the left was an open siding, connecting at both ends with the main track; and this siding was empty. On the right was the other side-track, also connecting at both ends with the main line. Upon this right-hand siding there were, first, at the lower end, Brannigan’s engine, the 717, and ahead of it a string of four cross-tie cars, the upper one of which had already been unloaded.
Under these conditions the first thing to be done was to side-track the Pullman on the left-hand, or empty, siding; next, to pull out the unloaded flat-car from the upper end of the other siding with the passenger engine, and to back it down upon the main track between the two sidings. When this should be done, the heavy passenger machine could be run ahead and backed down on the left-hand track to be recoupled to its Pullman; after which, Brannigan could take his own lighter engine, back it out to the main line over the lower switch, come up to a coupling behind the placed flat-car, and so be ready to push it on up to the rock cutting.
For the switching job Brannigan and his fireman crossed over and climbed upon the passenger engine, taking charge of it temporarily while Johnson and his fireman stood aside in the cab. Mr. Ackerman walked on up the track to where the men of the inspection party were waiting for the shift to be made. This left Dick and Larry alone in the cab of the 717, and since there was nothing further for them to do at the moment, they stayed there.
Out of the cab window they could look up ahead and see the various phases of the shift as they were made. Carefully Brannigan pulled the sleeping-car over the upper switches and backed it down on the left-hand side-track. Then he uncoupled and ran up to get the empty flat-car out of the other siding.
“I don’t much like the looks of that flimsy chock that Johnnie Shovel stuck under the Pullman’s wheels for a ‘safety’,” said the mechanically minded Larry, looking across to the sleeping-car where Bess Holcombe had a window open through which she, also, was watching the switching operations. “I’ve a good notion to slip over there and stick in a bigger chunk of wood. That little tree-limb that’s there now wouldn’t hold anything on this grade.”