by Zane Grey
35
Building a railroad grew to be an exact and wonderful science withthe men of the Union Pacific, from engineers down to the laborers whoballasted and smoothed the road-bed.
Wherever the work-trains stopped there began a hum like a bee-hive.Gangs loaded rails on a flat-car, and the horses or mules were driven ata gallop to the front. There two men grasped the end of a rail and beganto slide it off. In couples, other laborers of that particular gang laidhold, and when they had it off the car they ran away with it to dropit in place. While they were doing this other gangs followed with morerails. Four rails laid to the minute! When one of the cars was empty itwas tipped off the track to make room for the next one. And as that nextone passed the first was levered back again on the rails to return foranother load.
Four rails down to the minute! It was Herculean toil. The men who fittedthe rails were cursed the most frequently, because they took time, a fewseconds, when there was no time.
Then the spikers! These brawny, half-naked, sweaty giants--what a grandspanging music of labor rang from under their hammers! Three strokes toa spike for most spikers! Only two strokes for such as Casey or Neale!Ten spikes to a rail--four hundred rails to a mile! ... How many milliontimes had brawny arms swung and sledges clanged!
Forward every day the work-trains crept westward, closer and closer tothat great hour when they would meet the work-trains coming east.
The momentum now of the road-laying was tremendous. The spirit thatnothing could stop had become embodied in a scientific army of toilers,a mass, a machine, ponderous, irresistible, moving on to the meeting ofthe rails.
Every day the criss-cross of ties lengthened out along the windingroad-bed, and the lines of glistening rails kept pace with them. Thesun beat down hot--the dust flew in sheets and puffs--the smoky veilsfloated up from the desert. Red-shirted toilers, blue-shirted toilers,half-naked toilers, sweat and bled, and laughed grimly, and sucked attheir pipes, and bent their broad backs. The pace had quickened to thelimit of human endurance. Fury of sound filled the air. Its rhythmicalpace was the mighty gathering impetus of a last heave, a last swing.
Promontory Point was the place destined to be famous as the meeting ofthe rails.
On that summer day in 1869, which was to complete the work, specialtrains arrived from west and east. The Governor of California, who wasalso president of the western end of the line, met the Vice-President ofthe United States and the directors of the Union Pacific. Mormons fromUtah were there in force. The Government was represented by officersand soldiers in uniform; and these, with their military band, lent thefamiliar martial air to the last scene of the great enterprise. Heremingled the Irish and Negro laborers from the east with the Chinese andMexican from the west. Then the eastern paddies laid the last rails onone end, while the western coolies laid those on the other. The railsjoined. Spikes were driven, until the last one remained.
The Territory of Arizona had presented a spike of gold, silver, andiron Nevada had given one of silver, and a railroad tie of laurel wood;and the last spike of all--of solid gold--was presented by California.
The driving of the last spike was to be heard all over the UnitedStates. Omaha was the telegraphic center. The operator here had informedall inquirers, "When the last spike is driven at Promontory Point wewill say, 'Done!'"
The magic of the wire was to carry that single message abroad over theface of the land.
The President of the United States was to be congratulated, as were theofficers of the army, and the engineers of the work. San Franciscohad arranged a monster celebration marked by the booming of cannon andenthusiastic parades. Free railroad tickets into Sacramento were tofill that city with jubilant crowds. At Omaha cannons were to be fired,business abandoned, and the whole city given over to festivity. Chicagowas to see a great parade and decoration. In New York a hundred gunswere to boom out the tidings. Trinity Church was to have specialservices, and the famous chimes were to play "Old Hundred." InPhiladelphia a ringing of the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall wouldinitiate a celebration. And so it would be in all prominent cities ofthe Union.
Neale was at Promontory Point that summer day. He stood aloof from thecrowd, on a little bank, watching with shining eyes.
To him the scene was great, beautiful, final.
Only a few hundreds of that vast army of laborers were present at themeeting of the rails, but enough were there to represent the whole.Neale's glances were swift and gathering. His comrades, Pat andMcDermott, sat near, exchanging lights for their pipes. They seemedreposeful, and for them the matter was ended. Broken hulks of toilersof the rails! Neither would labor any more. A burly Negro, with crinkly,bullet-shaped head, leaned against a post; a brawny spiker, naked to thewaist, his wonderful shoulders and arms brown, shiny, knotted, scarred,stood near, sledge in hand; a group of Irishmen, red-and blue-shirted,puffed their black pipes and argued; swarthy, sloe-eyed Mexicans, withhuge sombreros on their knees, lolled in the shade of a tree, talkinglow in their mellow tones and fingering cigarettes; Chinamen, with longpig-tails and foreign dress, added strangeness and colorful contrast.
Neale heard the low murmur of voices of the crowd, and the slow puffingof the two engines, head on, only a few yards apart, so strikinglydifferent in shape. Then followed the pounding of hoofs and tread ofmany feet, the clang of iron as the last rail went down. How clear,sweet, spanging the hammer blows! And there was the old sighing sweep ofthe wind. Then came a gun-shot, the snort of a horse, a loud laugh.
Neale heard all with sensitive, recording ears.
"Mac, yez are so dom' smart--now tell me who built the U. P.?" demandedPat.
"Thot's asy. Me fri'nd Casey did, b'gorra," retorted McDermott.
"Loike hell he did! It was the Irish."
"Shure, thot's phwat I said," McDermott replied.
"Wal, thin, phwat built the U. P.? Tell me thot. Yez knows so much."
McDermott scratched his sun-blistered, stubble-field of a face, andgrinned. "Whisky built the eastern half, an' cold tay built the westernhalf."
Pat regarded his comrade with considerable respect. "Mac, shure yez isintilligint," he granted. "The Irish lived on whisky an' the Chinamonson tay.... Wal, yez is so dom' orful smart, mebbe yez can tell me whogot the money for thot worrk."
"B'gorra, I know where ivery dollar wint," replied McDermott.
And so they argued on, oblivious to the impressive last stage.
Neale sensed the rest, the repose in the attitude of all the laborerspresent. Their hour was done. And they accepted that with the equanimitywith which they had met the toil, the heat and thirst, the Sioux. Asplendid, rugged, loquacious, crude, elemental body of men, unconsciousof heroism. Those who had survived the five long years of toil and snowand sun, and the bloody Sioux, and the roaring camps, bore the scars,the furrows, the gray hairs of great and wild times.
A lane opened up in the crowd to the spot where the rails had met.
Neale got a glimpse of his associates, the engineers, as they stood nearthe frock-coated group of dignitaries and directors. Then Neale feltthe stir and lift of emotion, as if he were on a rising wave. His bloodbegan to flow fast and happily. He was to share their triumphs. Themoment had come. Some one led him back to his post of honor as the headof the engineer corps.
A silence fell then over that larger, denser multitude. It grewimpressive, charged, waiting.
Then a man of God offered up a prayer. His voice floated dreamilyto Neale. When he had ceased there were slow, dignified movements offrock-coated men as they placed in position the last spike.
The silver sledge flashed in the sunlight and fell. The sound of thedriving-stroke did not come to Neale with the familiar spang of iron itwas soft, mellow, golden.
A last stroke! The silence vibrated to a deep, hoarse acclaim fromhundreds of men--a triumphant, united hurrah, simultaneously sent outwith that final message, "Done!"
A great flood of sound, of color seemed to wave over Neale. His eyesdimmed with salt tears, blur
ring the splendid scene. The last moment hadpassed--that for which he had stood with all faith, all spirit--and thevictory was his. The darkness passed out of his soul.
Then, as he stood there, bareheaded, at the height of thisall-satisfying moment, when the last echoing melody of the sledge hadblended in the roar of the crowd, a strange feeling of a presence struckNeale. Was it spiritual--was it divine--was it God? Or was it onlybaneful, fateful--the specter of his accomplished work--a reminder ofthe long, gray future?
A hand slipped into his--small, soft, trembling, exquisitely thrilling.Neale became still as a stone--transfixed. He knew that touch. No dream,no fancy, no morbid visitation! He felt warm flesh--tender,clinging fingers; and then the pulse of blood that beat ofhope--love--life--Allie Lee!
