The Donovan Chance by Francis Lynde

"Now then, men――together! " _clang! _

The material train had just pulled up to the present-moment end-of-track on the Extension with a flat-car load of rails, and the crew, directed by a big-voiced foreman, was unloading the car.

Standing aside to be out of the way, Larry and Dick were checking the shipment of steel. The checking being a purely mechanical process, the two went on with their talk about the thing that had kept every member of the toiling construction force on edge for weeks; namely, the exciting question, which was growing more exciting from day to day, as to whether their railroad or the Overland Central, building at top speed on the opposite side of the canyon, would win the race to the Little Ophir gold field, now only twenty miles away.

"You'll sure have to hand it to those O. C. fellows when it comes to keeping us guessing," Dick was saying. "Ten miles back we all thought they were going into Little Ophir on the high level. But now they are dropping altitude so fast that they'll be on an even grade with us in another five miles or so."

In the intervals between the rail-clangings Larry had been scanning the cut-out notch in the opposite canyon slope marking the path of the Overland Central.

"Dropping is right," he agreed "Probably Mr. Ackerman's guess hits the mark: they've made two or three different surveys, and they are changing from one to another as they go along――anything to make the work go faster."

"Yes; and they're always picking the one that will do the most to hold us back," Dick added. "You can trust 'em to do that."

A few minutes later the unloading was finished and the boys walked on up the grade to where a big gang of hard-rock men were hewing out a path for the track-to-be through a jutting shoulder of the right-hand mountain. Goldrick, who had come to be known on the staff as the hard-rock specialist, was in charge of the rock blasting, and to him Dick and Larry reported for further duty.

"I don't know of anything pressing just now, unless you take a hike up the line and find Blaisdell, and ask him what he has to report," the assistant told them. "Mr. Ackerman is coming up this evening, and he'll want to know what the O. C. people are doing up above――or if they're doing anything beyond that big rock cutting they've been working on for the past week."

Blaisdell, as the boys knew, was an instrumentman who, with a helper to hold staff for him, had been sent ahead two days earlier to reset grade stakes in the upper reaches of the canyon, and, incidentally, to find out what advance the Overland Central was making at the back of beyond.

Taking Goldrick's suggestion as an order, Dick and Larry immediately outfitted for a tramp which would probably consume the entire day, getting a haversack lunch put up by the hard-rock camp cook. In light marching order they took the trail used by Blaisdell and his man two days before, choosing the steep route over the "Nose," as the jutting mountain shoulder was called, both because it would save time, and because the more roundabout route up the canyon at the river level was more or less blocked by the cliff through which the rock-men were still only in the process of drilling and blasting the way.

At their first breathing stop, half-way up the mountain, Larry said: "I wonder what can be keeping Ned Blaisdell out so long? I saw him when he started, and they weren't carrying chuck enough to feed the two of them for more than a day or so."

"You can search me," Dick returned. "Maybe he's been getting into trouble with some of the O. C. bullies."

Larry thought not. "No," he said; "his work wouldn't have taken him very near the O. C. at any point. They're held up in that big rock cutting half a mile above us, just the same as we are at the Nose. They are not over in Yellow Dog Park yet; and that is where Blaisdell was to do most of his verifying."

"You can't tell where those O. C. scrappers are, or what they're going to do next," said Dick soberly. "This fight is getting hotter every day. Last Wednesday, when I went over to Red Butte after some blue-prints for the bridge builders, Mr. Briscoe, our right-of-way agent, was in the Red Butte office. I heard him tell Mr. Ackerman that the mine owners at Little Ophir had got out a bond issue to help the railroad that gets there first with its tracks."

Larry nodded. "I heard about that bond issue. It doesn't seem just fair. It was promised to our company early this spring if we'd agree to build a line in from Red Butte. And now they say they'll give it to either company that gets there first."

"That's what they're saying now," Dick asserted. "And there's another kick coming to the under dog, besides. Mr. Briscoe said that the merchants and big ore shippers were offering, as another hurry punch, to sign contracts agreeing to give the winner all of their business for the first six months. So the losing company will have a dead railroad on its hands for a whole half year."

The square Donovan jaw set itself firmly.

"We've got to win, Dick. It isn't only the money; it's partly the way these O. C. folks have acted. It was our right-of-way in the beginning and this is Short Line territory. Besides, they haven't fought fair; they would have stolen the whole canyon if they'd got into it first, as they were planning to. I say we've _got_ to win."

"Right you are," said the general manager's son. And then: "Got your wind again? ――all right; let's go."