Leaving the roadmasters to care for their incoming forces, Callahan,
with Smith Young's men for guides, took the footpath on the south side
to the head of the cañon, where, above the break, an engine was waiting
to run him to Sleepy Cat. When he reached the station Agnew was up at
the material yard, and Callahan sat down in his shirt sleeves to take
reports on train movements. The despatchers were annulling, holding
the freights and distributing passenger trains at eating stations. But
an hour's work at the head-breaking problem left the division, Callahan
thought, in worse shape than when the planning began, and he got up
from the keg in a mental whirl when Duffy at Medicine Bend sent a body
blow in a long message supplementary to his first report.
"Bear Dance reports the fruit extras making a very fast run. First
train of eighteen cars has just pulled in: there are seven more of
these fruit extras following close, should arrive at Sleepy Cat at four
A.M."
Callahan turned from the message with his hand in his hair. Of all bad
luck this was the worst. The California fruit trains, not due for
twenty-four hours, coming in a day ahead of time with the Mountain
Division tied up by the worst washout it had ever seen. In a heat he
walked out of the operators' office to find Agnew; the two men met near
the water tank.
"Hello, Agnew. This puts us against it, doesn't it? How soon can you
give us a track?" asked Callahan, feverishly.
Agnew was the only man on the division that was always calm. He was
thorough, practical, and after he had cut his mountain teeth in the
Peace River disaster, a hardheaded man at his work.
"It will take forty-eight hours after I get my material here----"
"Forty-eight hours!" echoed Callahan. "Why, man, we shall have eight
trains of California fruit here by four o'clock."
"I'm on my way to order in the filling, now," said Agnew, "and I shall
push things to the limit, Mr. Callahan."
"Limit, yes, your limit--but what about my limit? Forty-eight hours'
delay will put every car of that fruit into market rotten. I've got to
have some kind of a track through there--any kind on earth will do--but
I've got to have it by to-morrow night."
"To-morrow night?"
"To-morrow night."
Agnew looked at him as a sympathizing man looks at a lunatic, and
calmly shook his head. "I can't get rock here till to-morrow morning.
What is the use talking impossibilities?"
Callahan ground his heel in the ballast. Agnew only asked him if he
realized what a hole there was to fill. "It's no use dumping gravel in
there," he explained patiently, "the river will carry it out faster
than flat cars can carry it in."