United States or Aruba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It mantled the shoulders of the workmen and the withers of the horses; it clogged the wheels of the fresnos so that dirt was moved with ever-increasing difficulty; it veiled the flaring gasolene torches and choked the night.
"Certainly; they would unload what they have in this rotten project so fast that the bonds would smoke. But who in the devil would touch them?" "I might." "You?" Gretzinger began to laugh. "What have you besides your outfit? They're not taking worn-out fresnos in exchange to-day, thank you." "And what are the three bondholders you represent worth?" Pat inquired, in a nettled tone.
Powder is ordinarily too expensive to employ when fresnos can work, yet it's just the thing in a pinch. We're in an emergency now. If it should set in and snow right along, with one storm on top of another, as may happen after so long a mild season, powder even may not help us out. These last eight hundred yards are going to make us weep before we're through, I'm guessing.
Horses slipped and went down, but were raised again; fresnos were mired, but freed once more; men gave out and were sent to their camp. And the fight kept on. But about eleven o'clock Bryant felt a cool puff of air on his cheeks, light and of brief duration.
I'll have my fresnos stacked and waiting to go down to Kennard." "Take a look at the northwest," said Bryant, significantly. A smoky haze lay along the horizon. "Aye, I see. That's her hair blowing out ahead. There will be plenty of wind after awhile, I'm thinking. Get word to the men in camp, will you, to make all the tents tight." At sundown the haze in the west had thickened somewhat.
For some time the wind blew only in those fitful puffs Lee had noted or died down entirely for short periods; and of this fact the night shift took advantage to assemble the fresnos and plows beside the canal and to drive their horses to shelter. The crews of the north camp, being fewer, got away first; and thither Bryant plowed through the snow with them to see all made safe.
For Bryant there now began a period of activity compared to which his earlier efforts were mere play. Headquarters were moved down to Perro Creek, ten miles nearer Kennard. In an endless procession streamed northward automobiles crammed with labourers, wagons heaped with lumber, cement, implements, food, tents, forage, and long lines of fresnos.
Hour after hour the steady labour proceeded plows ran; flat scrapers and wheeled fresnos followed, scooped up the earth, bore it to the banks above; horses tugged and strained; men toiled, pausing only to thaw their feet and hands at fires burning by the ditch or to drain great tin-cups of the scalding coffee that the cooks dipped from cans.
"I have an option of a rattling good second-hand locomotive down at the Santa Fe shops, and the Hawkins & Barnes Construction Company have offered me a steam shovel, half a dozen flat-cars, and a lot of fresnos and scrapers at ruinous prices. This equipment is pretty well worn, and they want to get rid of it before buying new stuff for their contract to build the Arizona and Sonora Central.
Now I'll tell you what it would be if there was no frost in the ground, as in summer and we'll afterward allow for the frost; and what's necessary in men, horses, fresnos, shacks, horsefeed, food, clothes, and general supplies." And thereupon Carrigan began to pour forth a stream of data so exact, so comprehensive, so full, that Bryant listened in astonishment.
Word Of The Day