"I have, Mrs. Whitney, thank you."
"Oh, see those pretty red lights over there now. What are they?" asked Louise, who stood with Allen Harrison.
"The signals," exclaimed Bucks. "Three fusees. Good for Glover; that means success. Shall we go?"
When the sightseers made their way out of the cañon material trains working from both ends of the break were shoving their loaded flats noisily up to the ballasting crews and the water was echoing the clang of the spike mauls, the thud of tamping-irons, the clash of picks, the splash of tumbling stone, and the ceaseless roll of shovels.
Foot by foot, length by length, the gap was shortened. Bribed by extra pay, driven by the bosses, and stimulated by the emergency, the work of the graders became an effort close to fury. Watches were already consulted and wagers were being laid between rival foremen on the moment a train should pass the point. Above the peaks the stars glittered, and high in the sky the moon shot a path of clear light down the river itself. The camp kettles steamed constantly, and coffee strong enough to ballast eggs and primed with unusual cordials was passed every hour among the hundreds along the track.
In the lower yard at Sleepy Cat the pilot train was being made ready and the clatter of switching came into the cañon. From still further came the barking exhaust of the first-train engine waiting for orders for the cañon run.
Glover pacing the narrow bench below the camp returned again to the operator's table, and in the light of the lantern wrote a message to Medicine Bend. When it had been sent he upended an empty spike keg, and sitting down before the fire, got his back against a rock and gave himself to his thoughts. Men straggled back and forth, but none disturbed him. Some, in turn, fed the fire, some rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down to sleep, but his eyes were lost all the while in the leaping blaze.
A volleying signal of the locomotive whistles roused him. He looked at his watch and stepped to the verge of the ledge. Toward Sleepy Cat a headlight was slowly rounding the first curve. The pilot train was coming and below where he stood he could see green lights swinging. The locomotive of the work-train was at the hind end and the roadmasters standing on the first flat car were signalling. Mauls were ringing at the last spikes when the head flat car moved cautiously out on the new track. Car after car approached, every second one bearing a flagman re-signalling to the cab as the train took the short curves of the cañon and entering the gorge rolled slowly beneath the Cat's Paw over the prostrate granite.
The trackmen parted only long enough to give way to the advancing cars. The locomotive steamed gingerly along. In the gangway stood a small, broad-hatted man, Morris Blood. He waved his lantern at Glover, and Glover caught up a hand-torch to swing an answering greeting.
Down the uncertain track could be seen at reassuring intervals the slow, green lights of the track foremen swinging all's well. The deepening drum of the steaming engine as it entered the gorge walls, the straining of the injectors, and the frequent hissing check of the air as the powerful machine restrained its moving load, was music to the tired listener above. Then, looming darkly behind the tender, surprising the onlookers, even Glover himself, came the real train. Not till the roadbuilders heard the heavy drop of the big cars on the new rail joints did they realize that the first train of fruit was already crossing the break.