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Updated: May 19, 2025
During O'Neil's absence work had progressed steadily. On his return he found the grade completed to within a few yards of Gordon's right-of-way. Although he was still unable to walk, he insisted upon going to the front, whither he was helped by Appleton and "Happy Tom."
"How are things going?" Ford's rejoinder began with a non-committal shrug. "We're building a railroad, after a fashion." "After a good fashion, I hope?" Another shrug. "We're doing as well as we can with the help we have. But about this right-of-way tangle " and he plunged his guest into a discussion of the Copah situation which ran on unbroken until bedtime.
For years previous to their unannounced departure they had felt its subtle influence when they read about the grand city in the newspapers which were occasionally found upon the right-of-way, having been thrown there from the passing trains by passengers who had read them.
A wag on the wire in Medicine Bend played upon his enthusiasm by demanding frequent bulletins, even going so far as to ask the names of the leading buffaloes in the herd. When he had got all the laughs possible for the office out of the youthful operator, he wired Bucks that if the herd should linger too long on the right-of-way he must notify them that they would be held as trespassers.
At Midland City, Stephen Hawk, the new right-of-way agent, ventured to ask municipal help to construct a ten-mile branch to Lavabee: it was forthcoming promptly; and the mass meeting, at which the bond loan was anticipated by public subscription shouted itself hoarse in enthusiasm.
On the ride to the Antelope viaduct he had noted a three-wire fence similar to this paralleling the right-of-way for several miles. Perhaps this was the same fence? If he only knew its direction! Dropping to the ground for a brief rest, Alex set his brains at recalling every bit of woods or plains lore he had ever heard or read of for the telling of direction.
"Devilish smart idea!" they said; and forthwith half the financial men of the city buried their fathers, or professed to have done so, in likely places along the prospective right-of-way of a suburban railway, for example; in fact, in any place that marked them out for the joyous resurrection of an expropriation purchase.
This was in the rock cuttings where the jagged faces of the cliffs thrust themselves out into the white cone of the headlight, scanting the narrow shelf of the right-of-way to a mere groove in the rock. He was afraid of the cuttings.
And he knew for Bill Dancing had told him that the one rill emptied at last into the Pacific Ocean, and the other into the Atlantic Ocean. Alongside these tiny streams he could plainly trace the overland trail of the emigrant wagons, and, cutting in straighter lines, but following the same general direction, lay the right-of-way of the new transcontinental railroad.
The open road beckoned northward, these full, balmy, late-April days, and various tattered men, mostly vagabonds and tramps, passed the gang from time to time on this same, northern quest. Ben thought about them as birds of passage, and the thought amused him. And at the sight of a small, stooped figure advancing toward him up the railroad right-of-way he paused, leaning on his pick.
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