Until the Last Spike by William Durbin

Author:William Durbin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

September 1

We laid sixty-five miles of track last month, but Pa says Durant is pushing for more. Rumors are that the C.P. is going even faster than we are. Though the mountains held the C.P. back a long time, the fellows say that they’ve reached a flat desert in Nevada and are going great guns.

The men are quick to shoot their mouths off. Tonight at supper, Bill Flanagan said, “No bunch of Chinamen is going to show us up,” and everyone nodded their head.

September 6

Sunday. The days are getting shorter, but Casement isn’t letting a little thing like darkness slow us down. We are working by moonlight, and when the moon isn’t out, we string lamps along the grade. Sometimes we light piles of sagebrush to help see our way. The smoke bums my eyes, and it’s hard to breathe when the wind is wrong.

One day last week, our crews worked from dawn to dusk and put down six miles of track.

“That’ll show ’em,” everyone said, but a few days later we heard that the C.P. had laid seven miles in only fourteen hours.

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