Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
There were a lot of mules and wagons and scrapers and other tools of a gang of railroad graders near the station; also some tents in which the men lived; these men were waiting for the train with the others, and talked so loud and made such a disturbance that it drowned out all other noises.
Neale rode into camp from the west in time to see Dillon's scout galloping hard up from the east. Neale dismounted before the waiting officers to give his report. "Good!" replied Dillon. "You certainly made time. We can figure on those graders in an hour or so?" "Yes. There were horses enough for half the gang," answered Neale. "Now for Anderson's report," muttered the officer.
While the level country enabled rapid progress to be made in grading, it was almost impossible to bring forward the requisite material to keep up with the graders and track-layers. The contract for the first hundred miles had been let May, 1864, to Hubert M. Hoxie. By its terms he was to receive securities to the face value of $50,000 per mile.
We had camped well beyond a last bunch of the red-shirted graders, so that the thread of a trail wended before, lonely, sand-obscured, leading apparently nowhere, through this desert devoid of human life. Line stakes of the surveyors denoted the grade; but the surveyors' work was done, here.
As has been stated, many of the officers and men engaged on the work were ex-soldiers accustomed to the use of arms. The construction trains and in fact all of the workers were liberally supplied with arms, principally rifles, and it was the boast that ten minutes any time was long enough to transform a gang of graders or track layers into a battalion of infantry.
I remember now that although he introduced himself, I never once thought to mention to him my name. The town was very rough last night the company had paid off the graders I was told and there was no carriage, so we were compelled to walk. I I never saw such a mob of drunken men. One came reeling against me, and brushed aside my veil so as to see my face.
It was a strange, restless populace, the majority here to-day, disappearing to-morrow cowboys, half-breeds, trackmen, graders, desperadoes, gamblers, saloon-keepers, merchants, generally Jewish, petty officials, and a riff-raff no one could account for, mere floating debris. The town was an eddy catching odd bits of driftwood such as only the frontier ever knew.
With the experience of three years behind them and the Land Grant, Government Bonds and prospective earnings, not to speak of the element of pride ahead, the two lines entered into a race the like of which had never been seen. The rivalry extended from the Presidents of the respective Companies down to the boy who carried water to the graders.
They were on their way east with a band of four hundred Montana ponies, which they had rounded up for the night just south of town. Two of them stayed to hold the drove, and the rest came into town, also to get drunk. They had good luck in doing this, and fought with the graders. I heard two or three shots soon after I went to bed, and thought of my mother.
I went along down toward the railroad, walking in the middle of the street so as not to make any noise. The big windmill on the water-tank swung a little in the wind and creaked; and the last light from the moon gleamed on its tail and then was gone. I turned out across where the graders had had their camp. Here the wind was hissing through the dry grass sharp enough.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking