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"The half-measure of scooping out a shallow road-bed and dumping the stuff on the incline is ruled out, because the spoil wouldn't lie and the river would sweep the dirt away. If we filled up the channel with rock, we'd turn the current on the bridge-pier." Then Charnock said something and Festing let them talk while he looked about.
An express train running at a high rate of speed, without a single stop and on a first-class road-bed, could hardly get from one end of the cañon to the other in less than five hours, and an ordinary train with the usual percentage of stoppage would about make the distance between morning and evening.
Already the huge camp of Slavs and Italians was beginning to jerk up the borrowed rails and ties; the work trains were rumbling and snorting in the meadows above Blitherwood, tottering about on the uncertain road-bed.
They were laid lengthwise of the road, far enough apart so that they would be directly under the wheels of the cars, and the ground graded up around them. In this manner they continued until the road-bed was finished. The next thing was to get out the ties.
The ladies were very worthy of attention, too. Miss Alathea Layson, the elder of the two, was slight, beautifully groomed despite the long and dirty trip on rough cars over the crude road-bed of a newly graded railway. A woman whose thirtieth birthday had been left behind some years before, she still had all the brightness and vivacity of the twenties in her carriage and her manner.
Off to the north appeared a light that grew till it threw a dazzling beam on the strange little waiting group. The train passed, a half-dozen dimly lighted Pullmans. The roaring decreased, the whistle sounded lower and lower and the night was silent. Rhoda sat following the last dim light with burning eyes. Kut-le led the way from the difficult going of the desert to the road-bed.
The ground shook, and flying fragments of ballast beat upon his turned-down hat; there was a deafening roar as the cars jolted past, and he saw the rails spring. Then the wind that buffeted him changed to eddying puffs, the noise receded, and he lifted his bent head. The rockwork stood firm, the ends of the timbers had not moved, and only a few small heaps of gravel had fallen from the road-bed.
The route travelled by the army before reaching Puebla, goes over a pass in a spur of mountain coming up from the south. This pass is very susceptible of defence by a smaller against a larger force. Again, the highest point of the road-bed between Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico is over Rio Frio mountain, which also might have been successfully defended by an inferior against a superior force.
The doctors have a most interesting discussion, but the patient dies, and the nature of the disease is discovered at the autopsy. Others still would make of the church a great railroad system, over which sleeping-cars run from the City of Destruction, with a coupon good to admit one to the Golden City at the other end. The coaches are luxurious and the road-bed smooth.
Lord Ralles was a little, well-built chap, not half so English as Albert Cullen, quick in manner and thought, being in this the opposite of his brother Captain Ackland, who was heavy enough to rock-ballast a road-bed. Both brothers gave me the impression of being gentlemen, and both were decidedly good-looking. After the introductions, Mr.
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