"It will take forty-eight hours after I get my material here——"
"Forty-eight hours!" echoed Callahan. "Why, man, we shall have eight trains of California fruit here by four o'clock."
"I'm on my way to order in the filling, now," said Agnew, "and I shall push things to the limit, Mr. Callahan."
"Limit, yes, your limit—but what about my limit? Forty-eight hours' delay will put every car of that fruit into market rotten. I've got to have some kind of a track through there—any kind on earth will do—but I've got to have it by to-morrow night."
"To-morrow night?"
"To-morrow night."
Agnew looked at him as a sympathizing man looks at a lunatic, and calmly shook his head. "I can't get rock here till to-morrow morning. What is the use talking impossibilities?"
Callahan ground his heel in the ballast. Agnew only asked him if he realized what a hole there was to fill. "It's no use dumping gravel in there," he explained patiently, "the river will carry it out faster than flat cars can carry it in."
Callahan waved his hand. "I've got to have track there by to-morrow night."
"I've got to dump a hundred cars of rock in there before we shall have anything to lay track on; and I've got to pick the rock up all the way from here to Goose River."