They were few, they were unshaven and
dirty and lean as hungry hounds; but they were the men whom Steve had
once bidden Hardwick Elliott to watch, once they had begun to scent
combat. Fat Joe was no longer plump. Steve was worn down to actual
thinness. And it would have taken a careful eye to have selected the
chief from their ranks that Sunday.
The huge timbers had dropped into place like bits of jig-sawed puzzle.
At three in the afternoon, too tired both in body and soul for elation,
Steve watched them drive home the last spike and heard their hoarse
effort at a cheer. He had turned to start toward his shack, not like a
man who knows that the end of a well-nigh hopeless task is in sight,
but like a beaten man. The first of May meant more to Steve than any
clause of the East Coast Company's contract could convey. He had not
had even one letter since he put her upon her train. Wickersham's
appearance on horseback, at the head of the valley, picking his way
around the flooded meadow, halted him in his heavy-footed climb. A
whistle shrilled, far to the south of them, down the completed track.
And then, after ten years and more, they were face to face again.
"That bridge will have to go down!" Wickersham was breathing hard, for
all that he had been riding. "I'm going through with my drive to-day!"
He had dismounted. Steve smiled at him.
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