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His instrument proved the correctness of his conclusion regarding the crescent-shaped elevation as a practical grade for a canal, which though necessitating a longer course would nevertheless immensely lessen the time, expense, and difficulties of digging when compared with a line along the mountains' flanks with its danger of washouts and earth slides. Nor did he stop there.
There were washouts and quicksands; treacherous fords and shelving precipices to be encountered, but here was a fortune guarded only by a woman whose recklessness led her toward disaster. "She's plum askin' fer hit beggin' fer hit," grinned Lute Brown who with a single companion strode along a wet and tangled trail shortly after sunrise. "An' I reckon she'll get hit."
For the next two hours we slunk like coyotes in coulée-bottoms and deep washouts, until we saw the commissary wagon cross the ridge west of Lost River, saw from a safe distance the brown specks that were riders, casting in wide circles for sight of us or our trail. Then MacRae leaned over his saddle-horn and made a wry face at them. "Hunt, confound you," he said, almost cheerfully.
They had gone to bed unaware of the estate or circumstance of their fellow-travellers, and had waked to find the train delayed by washouts, and side-tracked until more could be learned of the condition of the road. The man in the drawing-room shone, in the few glimpses that the others had of him, with an effulgence which was dazzling.
These serve a double purpose in preventing landslides and washouts on the tracks, and in adding greatly to the attractiveness of the scenery along the railway. The poorest land of a farm is always found on the hilltops, because even with the greatest care there is always considerable waste of the top-soil. This land, then, should never be used for field crops.
One never minds a hilly road where one can reach the bottom with an impetus that sends him spinning half-way up the next; but where mud-holes or washouts resolutely "hold the fort" in every depression, it is different, and the progress of the cycler is necessarily slow.
The standard gauge railway was still a long way from Ramleh, and the railway construction parties had to fight against bad weather and washouts. The Turkish line from Ramleh to Jerusalem was in bad order; a number of bridges were down, so that it was not likely the railway could be working for several weeks.
There was deep water where dry land had been, but, as if by long-planned study of the work of sappers and engineers, new pontoon bridges were thrown across, washouts filled in, new cliffs explored, and easy grades established; and by the time the bamboos ceased their own private after-shower, the columns were again running smoothly, battalions of eager light infantry hastening out to battle, and equal hosts of loot-laden warriors hurrying toward the home nest.
All through trains from the East to points on the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway west of Pittsburgh were temporarily discontinued. On the lines East, in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Oil City, Erie and Buffalo, serious washouts developed, aggregating in length on the Allegheny Division, about two thousand five hundred feet of main track.
Meanwhile Campbell rapidly talked about masonry, road-beds, washouts, and other things that Neale heard but did not clearly understand. Then Larry returned. He carried Neale's bag, which he deposited carefully on the bench. "I reckon you might as well take it along," he drawled. Neale felt himself being forced along an unknown path.
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