Opening the iron trail

THE rousing chant rang gaily upon the thin air of Western spring. Sitting Jenny, the old yellow mule, for a moment’s breather while the load of rails was being swept from his fl...

THE Indians had chosen exactly the right time, for _them_. They had awaited the moment when the main body of track-layers were farthest separated from the boarding-train and the...

THE few carbine barrels jutting here and there from behind the car-wheels were silent, as hugging the side of the train Terry boldly stepped over them; the skirmish lines were d...

SOMETIME in the night he knew that they were in motion--the engine was pushing them along, over the track. But when he really woke up, they were standing still, in daylight. Nor...

WITH a terrific jar Terry landed far in the brush and went ploughing and rolling, topsy-turvy. He thought that he heard Shep yelp (as if Shep had landed, too, somewhere); then h...

ON marched the rails of the iron trail, at a giant’s stride of one to two miles in a day, as if trying to catch the tie-layers and the graders. But the tie-layers, planting thei...

IT was a tremendous large party. In fact, it looked like a regular military excursion, instead of a survey trip, when in the early morning it moved out from new Julesburg (the “...

Away they dashed: The cavalry, old Jim Bridger (who rode like an Indian, his long hair streaming from under his greasy slouch hat), General Dodge, General Rawlins, General Augur...

“There’s the last of the main streams which flow eastward, men,” remarked General Dodge, as from the top of the pass they emerged into view of the valley below. “Once across tha...

It was the second day after leaving Rawlins Springs. Mr. Blickensderfer, the government representative; Mr. Carter, the director; Colonel Seymour, the railroad expert, General C...

AFTER all, it seemed good to be getting back into the midst of things again. Now George was all on fire to hasten ahead, and see the “doings.” So they stopped for only a night a...

THEY left shortly after midnight, with Major Hurd’s dispatch tucked inside Terry’s shirt along with the General Dodge letters. The men of the wagon corral, except the sentries,...

END O’ TRACK, again! With the secret of the Home Cooking restaurant kept close from Engine Driver Richards; with Pat Miles urging the work, and the red-shirted, gray-shirted, bl...

That was Terry, bursting in through the back doorway of the Home Cooking restaurant, in this last new base and division point, of Bryan, far western Wyoming. Time: Friday evenin...

The fall of 1868 had vanished in a whirlpool of furious work. Now in the early winter Terry Richards stood beside George Stanton, at the entrance to a cut through snow higher th...

It was the voice of Paddy Miles, construction boss, and also the present “conductor” of the construction-train about to answer a hurry call sent up to Wasatch station from end o...

“No; not yit. But, b’ gorry, th’ C. Pay. ingineers have drove their stakes, an’ th’ C. Pay. Mongolians have follered in, an’ th’ dirt’ll soon be flyin’ on two grades instead o’...

This was the excited greeting by George Stanton, when Terry met the pay-car in the latest “roaring” town of Blue Creek, at the base of Promontory Point on the U. P. side.

Since before daybreak the people from the U. P. camp had been streaming westward down the grade, toward the C. P. camp. Afoot, ahorse and by wagon they hastened along, to arrive...

Paddy Miles put the query to Terry, in the U. P. construction camp on the border of the Salt Lake near Blue Creek. The weather of the past few days had turned raw, blustery and...