We made a bargain with him that evening, to the satisfaction of all concerned, and the next morning Harry rode away to divide our few head of stock among our neighbors and hire if possible one or two among those whose crops had also suffered from frost. The latter, like the devastating hail, performs its work erratically, wiping out one man’s grain and sparing his neighbors’. Meanwhile I found plenty to do making arrangements to commence our work on the track.
CHAPTER XI
ON THE RAILROAD
It was a hot autumn morning when we prepared to commence our task of railroad building, the last forlorn hope between ourselves and ruin. Harry and I stood each beside our teams, which were harnessed to a great iron scoop or scraper designed to tear out a heavy load of soil at each traverse. This we would pile in the slight hollows, so that, sinking a few feet through the rises and raised slightly above each depression, the road-bed might run straight and level across the prairie. A group of sinewy, dusty men waited about the line of flat cars loaded with rails close behind, while a plume of black smoke curled aloft from the huge locomotive in a dingy column against the blue of the sky. This, with the cluster of tents and shanties, was all that broke the white grass-land’s empty monotony.
The surveyor, who was perhaps dustier than any, leaned against the engine’s buffer-frame close beside me, mopping his face, which was also smeared with soot, and surveyed us complacently, for with our assistants we formed, as far as outward appearances went, a workmanlike if somewhat disreputable company. Water was scarce that season and too precious to waste in superfluous washing, while we had little leisure to spare on even much-needed repairs to our garments. Still, we were alert, hard and eager, while after the preceding anxiety it was with improved spirits that we found definite work before us, with, what was better still, definite pay at the end of it. 118
“Well, they’ve finished the line posts; I guess you can start in,” said the surveyor. “You look as if you could keep those scoops from rusting. Good luck go with you! Stir round and heave those rails down, boys!”
Then with a crack of whips we started, and it was with satisfaction that I heard the trampling of hoofs bite into the sod and the bright steel edges rip through the matted roots. Soft earth and tangled grasses filled the iron scoop behind, the air vibrated with the strident clang of rails, and the locomotive engineer performed an inspiriting solo upon his whistle, while the rest of our party followed to finish the wake we left with their shovels. Somewhat improved appliances are used in railroad building now, but though it had limitations the scraper did excellent work in its day. All went well and smoothly for at least a month, and our hearts grew lighter every day, while each time the big locomotive came clattering up we had another length of road-bed ready for the rails, and the surveyor commented on our progress with frank approval. He also did so to some purpose in his reports to Winnipeg, as subsequently transpired, while occasionally, when we lounged languidly contented under the dew-damped canvas at nights, Harry would figure with the end of a pencil how much we had already placed to our credit.
“We are doing well, Ralph,” he said the last time it happened, with a smile that lighted his sunny face. “There’s enough now to pay off those people in Brandon, and with luck we’ll manage to settle with the worst of the rest before the frost comes. It’s almost a pity we didn’t try the railroad sooner, but”—and here he glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye—“we came out to work our own land, and it’s your intention to add acre to acre until Fairmead’s one of the biggest farms in the Territories, isn’t it?” 119