Empire Builders

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Empire Builders

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Empire Builders, by Francis Lynde, Illustrated by Jay Hambidge
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Title: Empire Builders
Author: Francis Lynde

Release Date: August 31, 2005 [eBook #16630]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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EMPIRE BUILDERS
by
FRANCIS LYNDE
Author of The Quickening, The Grafters A Fool for Love, etc.
With Illustrations by Jay Hambidge
Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers Press of Braunworth & Co. Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N.Y.
1907

[Illustration: "I won't attempt to apologize--it's beyond all that"]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A MASTER OF MEN 1
II A SPIKED SWITCH 13
III LOSS AND DAMAGE 30
IV COLD STORAGE 38
V WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS 47
VI THE AWAKENING OF CHARLES EDWARD 59
VII HAMMER AND TONGS 66
VIII THE AUTOMATIC AIR 75
IX THE RACE TO THE SLOW 90
X THE SINEWS OF WAR 100
XI HURRY ORDERS 120
XII THE ENTERING WEDGE 141
XIII THE BARBARIANS 155
XIV THE DRAW-BAR PULL 166
XV AN UNWILLING HOST 177
XVI THE TRUTHFUL ALTITUDES 186
XVII A NIGHT OF ALARMS 198
XVIII THE MORNING AFTER 217
XIX THE RELUCTANT WHEELS 238
XX THE CONSPIRATORS 254
XXI THE MILLS OF THE GODS 271
XXII THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 285
XXIII THE DEADLOCK 311
XXIV RUIZ GREGORIO 325
XXV THE SIEGE OF THE NADIA 336
XXVI THE STAR OF EMPIRE 362

EMPIRE BUILDERS
I
A MASTER OF MEN
Engine Number 206, narrow gauge, was pushing, or rather failing to push, the old-fashioned box-plow through the crusted drifts on the uptilted shoulder of Plug Mountain, at altitude ten thousand feet, with the mercury at twelve below zero. There was a wind--the winter day above timber-line without its wind is as rare as a thawing Christmas--and it cut like knives through any garmenting lighter than fur or leather. The cab of the 206 was old and weather-shaken, and Ford pulled the collar of his buffalo coat about his ears when the grunting of the exhaust and the shrilling of the wheels on the snow-shod rails stopped abruptly.
"Gar-r-r!" snarled Gallagher, the red-headed Irish engineer, shutting off the steam in impotent rage. "The power is not in this dommed ould camp-kittle sewin' machine! 'Tis heaven's pity they wouldn't be givin' us wan man-sized, fightin' lokimotive on this ind of the line, Misther Foord."
Ford, superintendent and general autocrat of the Plug Mountain branch of the Pacific Southwestern, climbed down from his cramped seat on the fireman's box and stood scowling at the retracting index of the steam-gauge. When he was on his feet beside the little Irishman, you saw that he was a young man, well-built, square-shouldered and athletic under the muffling of the shapeless fur greatcoat; also, that in spite of the scowl, his clean-shaven face was strong and manly and good to look upon.
"Power!" he retorted. "That's only one of the hundred things they don't give us, Mike. Look at that steam-gauge--freezing right where she stands!"
"'Tis so," assented Gallagher. "She'd be dead and shtiff in tin minutes be the clock if we'd lave her be in this drift."
Ford motioned the engineer aside and took the throttle himself. It was the third day out from Cherubusco, the station at the foot of the mountain; and in the eight-and-forty hours the engine, plow and crew of twenty shovelers had, by labor of the cruelest, opened eleven of the thirteen blockaded miles isolating Saint's Rest, the mining-camp end-of-track in the high basin at the head of the pass.
The throttle opened with a jerk under the superintendent's hand. There was a snow-choked drumming of the exhaust, and the driving-wheels spun wildly in the flurry beneath. But there was no inch of forward motion, and Ford gave it up.
"We're against it," he admitted. "Back her down and we'll put the shovelers at it again while you're nursing her up and getting more steam. We're going to make it to Saint's Rest to-day if the Two-six has to go in on three legs."
Gallagher pulled the reversing lever into the back gear and sent the failing steam whistling into the chilled cylinders with cautious little jerks at the throttle. The box-plow came out of the clutch of its snow vise with shrillings as of a soul in torment, and the bucking outfit screeched coldly down over the snowy rails to the "let-up," where the shovelers' box-car had been uncoupled.
Ford swung off to turn out the shoveling squad; and presently the laborers, muffled to the eyes, were filing past the 206 to break a path for the plow. Gallagher was on the running-board with his flare torch, thawing out an injector.