The Donovan Chance by Francis Lynde

"Ye-e-e wow! " Dick Maxwell, fighting sleepily to get his arms free from the tightly rolled blanket, yawned cavernously. Then: "Whoosh! ――Larry, old scout! ――wake up!"

The blanket roll in the other bunk stirred like a chrysalis about to burst and let loose whatever sort of bug it contained. Then a curly red head appeared, followed by a pair of stretching arms.

Dick sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk.

"Say, Larry; what do you know about this! " he exclaimed, staring at the face of his wrist watch. "By the great horn spoon――it's five o'clock! five o'clock _in the afternoon_!"

It was the day after the day of trampings, and old mother Nature had been taking her toll with a vengeance for the drafts made on her in the long hike to and through and around and beyond the valley with a doggish name. Straight through from a little past midnight the two hikers had slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted, and even now they both felt that they could stand still more of it.

"Ah-yah! " gaped Larry, matching Dick's yawn. "Say, Dickie; somebody must have put us to bed last night. I sure don't recollect doing any of it myself."

"If anybody should be interested enough to ask, I'll say that was some tramp we had yesterday; s-o-m-e tramp! " Dick put in.

"Uh-huh," Larry agreed. "You're talking in mouthfuls. Wonder if the news we brought did any good?"

"Here's hoping. But everything seems mighty quiet around here now――if we're supposed to be doing any hustling. I don't even hear the compressor running."

After they crawled into their clothes and turned out, the quietness of the camp was fully explained. First, they saw that the work in the big rock cutting just above the camp had apparently been abandoned――as it was, temporarily――and a track passage around the obstacle had been obtained by means of a hastily built wooden trestle standing, as the Overland Central trestle did at the point of that road's entrance into the canyon, with its bents in the river bed.

Over this trestle the track had already been laid; and while they were staring at the miracle of accomplishment which had been wrought in less than a double circuit of the clock-hands, the 717, with Brannigan at the throttle, came storming up the canyon, pushing two flat-cars loaded high with cross-ties――pushing them right along, too, for there was time only for a hand wave from the little Irishman before the two-car train shrilled around the curving trestle and disappeared to sight and sound.

"Hooray! " cried Dick, swinging his cap; "that means that we're still in the ring and going strong! Let's get a bite to eat and then go on ahead and report for duty."

Luckily for them there was a cook left at the nearly deserted hard-rock camp, and the "bite" to which they presently sat down transformed itself into a hearty meal, as it had need to be, since it took the place of the skipped supper of the night before, and the breakfast and dinner of the day through which they had slept.

This very necessary preliminary attended to, they set out to follow the lately laid track up the canyon. At every step they marveled. There had been a great deal of hurry work done during the summer on the race up the Tourmaline, but nothing to equal this drive which had gone on while they slept. "Miraculous" was the only word that fitted. In the short time that had elapsed the track had been carried around the canyon obstacles and up to and into Yellow Dog Park, and the rush――judging from the number of material trains that passed them as they hurried forward――was still on.

Among the sandstone hills in the circular valley they came upon the building army, augmented now by every available man on the large construction force. In the thick of the work turmoil the boys found their chief.

"Glad to see you fellows," said the driver of men briskly. "Did you have your sleep out?"

"We sure did," Dick grinned.

"All right; we're calling it a battle, and I'll make you two my orderlies. Dick, you may run up ahead and see how the supply of cross-ties is holding out. Report to Goldrick if it's running short. Larry, you chase around until you find Smith, the wire chief, and tell him we've got to have those arc-lights in commission within an hour. Then find Lonergan and see if his carbide flares are ready to be distributed. Skip for it――both of you!"

That was the introduction to a night's work that both Dick and Larry thought they should never live long enough to forget. Almost as if by magic, it seemed, electric wires were strung, and with the coming of darkness, arc-lights and carbide flares blazed out all along the line. Under an illumination that was little short of daylight the gangs of track-layers, working now at the close of a twenty-four-hour shift in relays of two hours on and one hour off for rest, sprang to their task. Like clock-work the material trains came up from the supply camps below, cross-ties and rails, spikes and fish-plates, bolts and nuts were distributed, and the incessant clanging of the spike mauls was like the din of a busy blacksmith shop.

It was during this night of tremendous toil――the second night for the men who were driving the job――that a track-laying record was broken for that entire section of the West. Fortunately, the ground between the sandstone buttes was comparatively level and but little grading was needed. But for that matter, the "leveling" could be done later by reworking crews. The need of the moment was for speed; for the construction of a usable track of some sort――any sort; and under the combined efforts of a master mind and many tireless and skilful hands the usable track was materializing by leaps and bounds.