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

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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."




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