CHAPTER 4
"the Old Man of the Mountain"
CHAPTER 4Visible text2 paragraphs
The big "consolidation," its single pair of pony trucks feeling out the way for the eight gripping drive-wheels, was storming up the crooked canyon of the Tourmaline, pushing two flat-car loads of steel rails ahead of it and waking the echoes with its clamor.
The track, rough and uneven because it had not yet been "surfaced," made the big engine rock and surge from side to side, and Dick and Larry, perched on the fireman's seat and carefully nursing two mahogany boxes, had to brace themselves to keep their places. Two days earlier a pair of surveying instruments had been damaged by the premature explosion of a blast in a rock cutting, and the boys were returning from a hurry trip to the valley supply camp with replacements.