CHAPTER XAN EVENING OF ADVENTURE
That evening Steve and his father took a taxi-cab and drove to the number Mr. Ackerman had given them. It proved to be an imposing apartment house of cream brick overlooking the Hudson; and the view from the fifth floor, where their host lived, was such a fascinating one that the boy could hardly be persuaded to leave the bay window that fronted the shifting panorama before him.
"So you like my moving picture, do you, Steve?" inquired the New Yorker merrily.
"It is great! If I lived here I shouldn't do a bit of studying," was the lad's answer.
"You think the influence of the place bad, then."
"It would be for me," Stephen chuckled.
Both Mr. Tolman and Mr. Ackerman laughed.
"I will own," the latter confessed, "that at first those front windows demoralized me not a little. They had the same lure for me as they have for you. But by and by I gained the strength of mind to turn my back and let the Hudson River traffic look out for itself."
"You might try that remedy, son," suggested Steve's father.
"No, no, Tolman! Let the boy alone. If he is enjoying the ferries and steamboats so much the better."
"But there seem to be plenty of steamboats here in the room to enjoy," was Mr. Tolman's quick retort.
"Steamboats?" repeated Steve vaguely, turning and looking about him.
Sure enough, there were steamboats galore! Wherever he looked he saw them. Not only were the walls covered with pictures of every imaginable type of steamer, but wherever there was space enough there were tiers of little ship models in glass cases. There were side-wheelers, awkwardly constructed boats with sprawling paddles, screw propellers, and twin-screw craft; ferryboats, tugs, steam yachts, and ocean liners. Every known variety of sea-going contrivance was represented. The large room was like a museum of ships and the boy gave an involuntary exclamation of delight.
"Jove!"
It was a laconic tribute to the marvels about him but it was uttered with so much vehemence that there was no mistaking its sincerity. Evidently, terse as it was, its ring of fervor satisfied Mr. Ackerman for he smiled to himself.
"I never saw so many boats in all my life!" burst out Steve.
"I told you I was in the steamboat business," put in Mr. Ackerman mischievously.
"I should think you were!" was the lad's comment.
"This is a wonderful collection, Ackerman," Mr. Tolman asserted, as he rose and began to walk about the room. "How did you ever get it together? Many of these prints are priceless."
"Oh, I have been years doing it," Mr. Ackerman said. "It has been my hobby. I have chosen to sink my money in these toys instead of in an abandoned farm or antique furniture. It is just a matter of taste, you see."
"You must have done some scouring of the country to make your collection so complete. I don't see how you ever succeeded in finding these old pictures and models. It is a genuine history lesson."
"I do not deserve all the credit, by any means," the capitalist protested with modesty. "My grandfather, who was one of the owners of the first of the Hudson River steamers, began collecting pictures and drawings; and at his death they came to my father who added to them. Afterward, when the collection descended to me, I tried to fill in the gaps in order to make the sequence complete. Of course in many cases I have not been able to find what I wanted, for neither prints nor models of some of the ships I desired were to be had. Either there were no copies of them in existence, or if there were no money could tempt their owners to part with them. Still I have a well enough graded lot to show the progression."
"I should think you had!" said Mr. Tolman heartily. "You have arranged them beautifully, too, from the old whalers and early American coasting ships to the clippers. Then come the first steam packets, I see, and then the development of the steamboat through its successive steps up to our present-day floating palace. It tells its own story, doesn't it?"
"In certain fashion, yes," Mr. Ackerman agreed. "But the real romance of it will never be fully told, I suppose. What an era of progress through which to have lived!"
"And shared in, as your family evidently did," interposed Mr. Tolman quickly.
His host nodded.
"Yes," he answered, "I am quite proud to think that both my father and my grandfather had their humble part in the story."
"And well you may be. They were makers of history."
Both men were silent an instant, each occupied with his own thoughts.
Mr. Tolman moved reflectively toward the mantelpiece before which Steve was standing, gazing intently at a significant quartette of tiny models under glass. First came a ship of graceful outline, having a miniature figurehead of an angel at its prow and every sail set. Beside this was an ungainly side-wheeler with scarce a line of beauty to commend it. Next in order came an exquisite, up-to-date ocean liner; and the last in the groupwas a modern battleship with guns, wireless, and every detail cunningly reproduced.
Stephen stood speechless before them.
"What are you thinking of, son?" his father asked.
"Why, I—" the boy hesitated.
"Come, tell us! I'd like to know, too," echoed Mr. Ackerman.
"Why, to be honest I was wondering how you happened to pick these particular four for your mantel," replied the lad with confusion.
The steamboat man smiled kindly.
"You think there are handsomer boats in the room than these, do you?"
"Certainly there are better looking steamships than this one," Steve returned, pointing with a shrug of his shoulders at the clumsy side-wheeler.
"But that rather ugly craft is the most important one of the lot, my boy," Mr. Tolman declared.
"I suppose that is true," Mr. Ackerman agreed. "The fate of all the others hung on that ship."
"Why?" was the boy's prompt question.
"Oh, it is much too long a yarn to tell you now," laughed his host. "Were we to begin that tale we should not get to the theater to-night, say nothing of having any dinner."
"I'd like to hear the story," persisted Stephen.
"You will be reading it from a book some day."
"I'd rather hear you tell it."
"If that isn't a spontaneous compliment, Ackerman, I don't know what is," laughed Mr. Tolman.
The steamboat man did not reply but he could not quite disguise his pleasure, although he said a bit gruffly:
"We shall have to leave the story and go to the show to-night. I've bought the tickets and there is no escape," added he humorously. "But perhaps before you leave New York there will be some other chance for me to spin my yarn for you, and put your father's railroad romances entirely in the shade."
The butler announced dinner and they passed into the dining room.
If, however, Stephen thought that he was now to leave ships behind him he was mistaken, for the dining room proved to be quite as much of a museum as the library had been. Against the dull blue paper hung pictures of racing yachts, early American fighting ships, and nautical encounters on the high seas. The house was a veritable wonderland, and so distracted was the lad that he could scarcely eat.
"Come, come, son," objected Mr. Tolman at last, "you will not be ready in time to go to any show unless you turn your attention to your dinner."
"That's right," Mr. Ackerman said. "Fall to and eat your roast beef. We are none too early as it is."
Accordingly Stephen fixed his eyes on his plate with resolution and tried his best to think no more of his alluring surroundings. With the coming ofthe ice-cream he had almost forgotten there were such things as ships, and when he rose from the table he found himself quite as eager to set forth to the theater as any other healthy-minded lad of his age would have been.
The "show" Mr. Ackerman had selected had been chosen with much care and was one any boy would have delighted to see. The great stage had, for the time being, been transformed to a western prairie and across it came a group of canvas-covered wagons, or prairie schooners, such as were used in the early days by the first settlers of the West. Women and children were huddled beneath the arched canopy of coarse cloth and inside this shelter they passed the weary days and nights of travel. Through sun and storm the wagons rumbled on; jogging across the rough, uncharted country and jolting over rocks, sagebrush, and sand. There were streams to ford, mountains to climb on the long trip westward, but undaunted by obstacles the heroic little band of settlers who had with such determination left kin and comfort behind them passed on to that new land toward which their faces were set.
It was such a company as this that Stephen now saw pictured before him. Perched on the front seat of the wagon driving the horses was the father of the family, rugged, alert, and of the woodsman type characteristic of the New England pioneer. The cavalcade halted. A fire was built and the travelers cooked their supper. Across the valleyone could see the fading sunset deepen into twilight. From a little stream near-by the men brought water for the tired horses. Then the women and children clambered into the "ship of the desert" and prepared for a night's rest.
In the meantime the men lingered about the dying fire and one of them, a gun in his hand, paced back and forth as if on guard. Then suddenly he turned excitedly to his comrades with his finger on his lips. He had heard a sound, the sound they all dreaded,—the cry of an Indian.
Presently over the crest of the hill came stealing a stealthy band of savages. On they came, crouching against the rocks and moving forward with the lithe, gliding motion of serpents. The men sank down behind the brush, weapons in hand, and waited. On came the bloodthirsty Indians. Then, just when the destruction of the travelers seemed certain, onto the stage galloped a company of cowboys. Immediately there was a flashing of rifles and a din of battle. First it seemed as if the heroic rescuers would surely be slaughtered. But they fought bravely and soon the Indians were either killed or captured. Amid the confusion the owners of the prairie schooners leaped to the seats of their wagons, lashed forward their tired horses, and disappeared in safety with the terrified women and children.
It was not until the curtain fell upon this thrilling adventure that Stephen sank back into his chair and drew a long breath.
"Some show, eh, son?" said Mr. Tolman, as they put on their overcoats to leave the theater after the three long acts were over.
The boy looked up, his eyes wide with excitement.
"I should say!" he managed to gasp.
"Did you like it, sonny?" Mr. Ackerman inquired.
"You bet I did!"
"Think you would have preferred to cross the continent by wagon rather than by train?"
Steve hesitated.
"I guess a train would have been good enough for me," he replied. "Was it really as bad as that before the railroads were built?"
"Quite as bad, I'm afraid," was his father's answer. "Sometimes it was even worse, for the unfortunate settlers did not always contrive to escape. It took courage to be a pioneer and travel the country in those days. Undoubtedly there was much romance in the adventure but hand in hand with it went no little peril and discomfort. We owe a great deal to the men who settled the West; and, I sometimes think, even more to the dauntless women."
Stephen did not reply. Very quietly he walked down the aisle between his father and Mr. Ackerman, and when he gave his hand to the latter and said good-night he was still thoughtful. It was evident that the scenes he had witnessed had made a profound impression on him and that he was stillimmersed in the atmosphere of prairie schooners, lurking Indians, and desert hold-ups. Even when he reached the hotel he was too tense and broad awake to go to bed.
"I wish you'd tell me, Dad, how the first railroad across the country was built," he said. "I don't see how any track was ever laid through such a wilderness. Didn't the Indians attack the workmen? I should think they would have."
His father placed a hand kindly on his shoulder.
"To-morrow we'll talk trans-continental railroads, son, if by that time you still wish to," said he. "But to-night we'll go to bed and think no more about them. I am tired and am sure you must be."
"I'm not!" was the prompt retort.
"I rather fancy you will discover you are after you have undressed," smiled his father. "At any rate we'll have to call off railroading for to-night, for if you are not sleepy, I am."
"But you won't have time to tell me anything to-morrow," grumbled Steve, rising unwillingly from his chair. "You will be busy and forget all about it and—"
"I have nothing to do until eleven o'clock," interrupted Mr. Tolman, "when I have a business meeting to attend. Up to that time I shall be free. And as for forgetting it—well, you might possibly remind me if the promise passes out of my mind."
In spite of himself the boy grinned.
"You can bank on my reminding you all right!" he said, yawning.
"Very well. Then it is a bargain. You do the reminding and I will do the story-telling. Are you satisfied and ready to go to bed and to sleep now?"
"I guess so, yes."
"Good-night then."
"Good-night, Dad. I—I've had a bully day."
CHAPTER XITHE CROSSING OF THE COUNTRY
In spite of the many excitements crowded into his first day in New York Stephen found that when his head actually touched the pillow sleep was not long in coming and he awoke the next morning refreshed by a heavy and dreamless slumber. He was even dressed and ready for breakfast before his father and a-tiptoe to attack whatever program the day might present.
Fortunately Mr. Tolman was of a sufficiently sympathetic nature to remember how he had felt when a boy, and with generous appreciation for the lad's impatience he scrambled up and made himself ready for a breakfast that was earlier, perhaps, than he would have preferred.
"Well, son," said he, as they took their places in the large dining room, "what is the prospect for to-day? Are you feeling fit for more adventures?"
"I'm primed for whatever comes," smiled the boy.
"That's the proper spirit! Indians, bandits and cowboys did not haunt your pillow then."
"I didn't stay awake to see."
"You are a model traveler! Now we must plansomething pleasant for you to do to-day. I am not sure that we can keep up the pace yesterday set us, for it was a pretty thrilling one. Robberies and arrests do not come every day, to say nothing of flotillas of ships and Wild West shows. However, we will do the best we can not to let the day go stale by contrast. But first I must dictate a few letters and glance over the morning paper. This won't take me long and while I am doing it I would suggest that you go into the writing room and send a letter to your mother. I will join you there in half an hour and we will do whatever you like before I go to my meeting. How is that?"
"Righto!"
Accordingly, after breakfast was finished, Steve wandered off by himself in search of paper and ink, and so sumptuous did he find the writing appointments that he not only dashed off a letter to his mother recounting some of the happenings of the previous day, but on discovering a rack of post cards he mailed to Jack Curtis, Tim Barclay, Bud Taylor and some of the other boys patronizing messages informing them that New York was "great" and he wassorry they were not there. In fact, it seemed at the moment that all those unfortunate persons who could not visit this magic city were to be profoundly pitied.
In the purchase of stamps for these egoistic missives the remainder of the time passed, and before he realized the half-hour was gone, he saw his father standing in the doorway.
"I am going up to the room now to hunt up some cigars, Steve," announced the elder man. "Do you want to come along or stay here?"
"I'll come with you, Dad," was the quick reply.
The elevator shot them to the ninth floor in no time and soon they were in their room looking down on the turmoil in the street below.
"Some city, isn't it?" commented Mr. Tolman, turning away from the busy scene to rummage through his suit case.
"It's a corker!"
"I thought you would like to go out to the Zoo this morning while I am busy. What do you say?"
"That would be bully."
"It is a simple trip which you can easily make alone. If you like, you can start along now," Mr. Tolman suggested.
"But you said last night that if I would hurry to bed, to-day you would tell me about the Western railroads," objected Stephen.
He saw his father's eyes twinkle.
"You have a remarkable memory," replied he. "I recall now that I did say something of the sort. But surely you do not mean that you would prefer to remain here and talk railroads than to go to the Zoo."
"I can go to the Zoo after you have gone out," maintained Steve, standing his ground valiantly.
"You are a merciless young beggar," grinned his father. "I plainly see that like Shylock you aredetermined to have your pound of flesh. Well, sit down. We will talk while I smoke."
As the boy settled contentedly into one of the comfortable chintz-covered chairs, Mr. Tolman blew a series of delicate rings of smoke toward the ceiling and wrinkled his brow thoughtfully.
"You got a pretty good idea at the theater last night what America was before we had trans-continental railroads," began he slowly. "You know enough of geography too, I hope, to imagine to some extent what it must have meant to hew a path across such an immense country as ours; lay a roadbed with its wooden ties; and transport all this material as well as the heavy rails necessary for the project. We all think we can picture to ourselves the enormity of the undertaking; but actually we have almost no conception of the difficulties such a mammoth work represented."
He paused, half closing his eyes amid the cloud of smoke.
"To begin with, the promoters of the enterprise received scant encouragement to attack the problem, for few persons of that day had much faith in the undertaking. In place of help, ridicule cropped up from many sources. It was absurd, the public said, to expect such a wild-cat scheme to succeed. Why, over six hundred miles of the area to be covered did not contain a tree and in consequence there would be nothing from which to make cross-ties. And where was the workmen's food to come from if they were plunged into a wildernessbeyond the reach of civilization? The thing couldn't be done. It was impossible. Of course it was a wonderful idea. But it never could be carried out. Where were the men to be found who would be willing to take their lives in their hands and set forth to work where Indians or wild beasts were liable to devour them at any moment? Moreover, to build a railroad of such length would take a lifetime and where was the money coming from? For you must remember that the men of that period had no such vast fortunes as many of them have now, and it was no easy task to finance a scheme where the outlay was so tremendous and the probability of success so shadowy. Even as late as 1856 the whole notion was considered visionary by the greater part of the populace."
"But the fun of doing it, Dad!" ejaculated Stephen, with sparkling eyes.
"The fun of it!" repeated his father with a shrug. "Yes, there was fun in the adventure, there is no denying that; and fortunately for the dreamers who saw the vision, men were found who felt precisely as you do. Youth always puts romance above danger, and had there not been these romance lovers it would have gone hard with the trans-continental railroads. We might never have had them. As it was, even the men who ventured to cast in their lot with the promoters had the caution to demand their pay in advance. They had no mind to be deluded into working for a precarious wage. At length enough toilers from the eastand from the west were found who were willing to take a chance with their physical safety, and the enterprise was begun."
Stephen straightened up in his chair.
"Had the only obstacle confronting them been the reach of uncharted country ahead that would have been discouraging enough. Fancy pushing your way through eight hundred miles of territory that had never been touched by civilization! And while you are imagining that, do not forget that the slender ribbon of track left behind was your only link with home; and your only hope of getting food, materials, and sometimes water. Ah, you would have had excitement enough to satisfy you had you been one of that company of workmen! On improvised trucks they put up bunks and here they took turns in sleeping while some of their party stood guard to warn them of night raids from Indians and wild beasts. Even in the daytime outposts had to be stationed; and more than once, in spite of every precaution, savages descended on the little groups of builders, overpowered them, and slaughtered many of the number or carried away their provisions and left them to starve. Sometimes marauders tore up the tracks, thereby breaking the connection with the camps in the rear from which aid could be summoned; and in early railroad literature we find many a tale of heroic engineers who ran their locomotives back through almost certain destruction in order to procure help for their comrades. Supply trainswere held up and swept clean of their stores; paymasters were robbed, and sometimes murdered, so no money reached the employees; every sort of calamity befell the men. Hundreds of the ten thousand Chinese imported to work at a microscopic wage died of sickness or exposure to the extreme heat or cold."
"Gee!" gasped Stephen, "I'd no idea it was so bad as all that!"
"Most persons have but a faint conception of the price paid for our railways—paid not alone in money but in human life," answered Mr. Tolman. "The route of the western railroads, you see, did not lie solely through flat, thickly wooded country. Our great land, you must remember, is made up of a variety of natural formations, and in crossing from the Atlantic coast to that of the Pacific we get them one after another. In contrast to the forests of mighty trees, with their tangled undergrowth, there were stretches of prairie where no hills broke the level ground; another region contained miles and miles of alkali desert, dry and scorching, where the sun blazed so fiercely down on the steel rails that they became too hot to touch. Here men died of sunstroke and of fever; and some died for want of water. Then directly in the railroad's path arose the towering peaks of the Sierras and Rockies whose snowy crests must be crossed, and whose cold, storms and gales must be endured. Battling with these hardships the workmen were forced to drill holes in therocky summits and bolt their rough huts down to the earth to prevent them from being blown away."
"I don't see how the thing could have been done!" Steve exclaimed, with growing wonder.
"And you must not forget to add to the chapter of tribulations the rivers that barred the way; the ravines that must either be filled in or bridged; the rocks that had to be blasted out; and the mountains that must be climbed or tunneled."
"I don't see how they ever turned the trick!" the boy repeated.
"It is the same old tale of progress," mused his father. "Over and over again, since time began, men have given their lives that the world might move forward and you and I enjoy the benefits of civilization. Remember it and be grateful to the past and to that vast army of toilers who offered up their all that you might, without effort, profit by the things it took their blood to procure. There is scarcely a comfort you have about you that has not cost myriad men labor, weariness, and perhaps life itself. Therefore value highly your heritage and treat the fruits of all hard work with respect; and whenever you can fit your own small stone into the structure, or advance any good thing that shall smooth the path of those who are to follow you, do it as your sacred duty to those who have so unselfishly builded for you."
There was a moment of silence and the rumble of the busy street rose to their ears.
"I never shall build anything that will help themen of the future," observed Stephen, in a low tone.
"Every human being is building all the time," replied his father. "He is building a strong body that shall mean a better race; a clean mind that shall mean a purer race; a loyalty to country that will result in finer citizenship; and a life of service to his fellows that will bring in time a broader Christianity. Will not the world be the better for all these things? It lies with us to carry forward the good and lessen the evil of the universe, or tear down the splendid ideals for which our fathers struggled and retard the upward march of the universe. If everybody put his shoulder to the wheel and helped the forward spin of our old world, how quickly it would become a better place!"
As he concluded his remarks Mr. Tolman took out his watch.
"Well, well!" said he. "I had no idea it was so late. I must hurry or I shall not finish my story."
"As I told you the men from the east and those from the west worked toward each other from opposite ends of the country. As soon as short lengths of track were finished they were joined together. Near the great Salt Lake of Utah a tie of polished laurel wood banded with silver marked the successful crossing of Utah's territory. Five years later Nevada contributed some large silver spikes to join her length of track to the rest. California sent spikes of solid gold, symbolic both of her cooperation and her mineral wealth; Arizonaone of gold, one of silver, and one of iron. Many other States offered significant tributes of similar nature. And when at last the great day came when all the short lines were connected in one whole, what a celebration there was from sea to sea! Wires had been laid so that the hammer that drove the last spike sent the news to cities all over the land. Bells rang, whistles blew, fire alarms sounded. The cost of the Union Pacific was about thirty-nine million dollars and that of the Central Pacific about one hundred and forty million dollars. The construction of the Southern Pacific presented a different set of problems from those of the Northern, but many of the difficulties encountered were the same. Bands of robbers and Indians beset the workmen and either cut the ties and spread the rails, or tore the track up altogether for long distances. Forest fires often overtook the men before they could escape, although trains sometimes contrived to get through the burning areas by drenching their roofs and were able to bring succor to those in peril. Then there were washouts and snowstorms quite as severe as any experienced in the northern country."
"I'm afraid I should have given the whole thing up!" interrupted Steve.
"Many another was of your mind," returned Mr. Tolman. "The frightful heat encountered when crossing the deserts was, as I have said, the greatest handicap. Frequently the work was at a standstill for months because all the metal—rails andtools—became too hot to handle. The difficulty of getting water to the men in order to keep them alive in this arid waste was in itself colossal. Tank cars were sent forward constantly on all the railroads, northern as well as southern, and the suffering experienced when such cars were for various reasons stalled was tremendous. The sand storms along the Southern Pacific route were yet another menace. So you see an eagerness for adventure had to be balanced by a corresponding measure of bravery. Those early days of railroad building were not all romance and picturesqueness."
Stephen nodded as his father rose and took up his hat and coat.
"I'd like to hear Mr. Ackerman tell of the early steamboating," remarked the lad. "I'll bet the story couldn't match the one you have just told."
"Perhaps not," his father replied. "Nevertheless the steamships had their full share of exciting history and you must not be positive in your opinion until you have heard both tales. Now come along, son, if you are going with me, for I must be off."
Obediently Stephen slipped into his ulster and tagged at his father's heels along the corridor.
What a magic country he lived in! And how had it happened that it had been his luck to be born now rather than in the pioneer days when there were not only no railroads but no great hotels like this one, and no elevators?
"I suppose," observed Mr. Tolman, as they went along, "we can hardly estimate what the coming of these railroads meant to the country. All the isolated sections were now blended into one vast territory which brought the dwellers of each into a common brotherhood. It was no small matter to make a unit of a great republic like ours. The seafarer and the woodsman; easterner, westerner, northerner, and southerner exchanged visits and became more intelligently sympathetic. Rural districts were opened up and made possible for habitation. The products of the seacoast and the interior were interchanged. Crops could now be transported; material for clothing distributed; and coal, steel, and iron—on which our industries were dependent—carried wherever they were needed. Commerce took a leap forward and with it national prosperity. From now on we were no longer hampered in our inventions or industries and forced to send to England for machinery. We could make our own engines, manufacture our own rails, coal our own boilers. Distance was diminished until it was no longer a barrier. Letters that it previously took days and even weeks to get came in hours, and the cost and time for freight transportation was revolutionized. In 1804, for example, it took four days to get a letter from New York to Boston; and even as late as 1817 it cost a hundred dollars to move a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York and took twenty days to do it. In every direction the railroads made for nationaladvancement and a more solid United States. No soldiers, no statesmen of our land deserve greater honor as useful citizens than do these men who braved every danger to build across the country our trans-continental railways."
CHAPTER XIINEW PROBLEMS
"I have been thinking, Dad," said Steve that evening, while they sat at dinner, "of the railroad story you told me this morning. It was some yarn." His father laughed over the top of his coffee cup.
"It was, wasn't it?" replied he. "And the half was not told then. I was in too much of a hurry to give you an idea of all the trials the poor railroad builders encountered. Did it occur to you, for example, that after the roads to the Pacific coast were laid their managers were confronted by another great difficulty,—the difference in time between the east and the west?"
"I never thought of that," was Steve's answer. "Of course the time must have differed a lot."
"Indeed it did! Every little branch road followed the time peculiar to its own section of the country, and the task of unifying this so that a basis for a common time-table could be adopted was tremendous. A convention of scientists from every section of the country was called to see what could be done about the fifty-three different times in use by the various railroads."
"Fifty-three!" ejaculated Stephen, with a grin. "Why, that was almost as many as Heinz pickles."
"In this case the results of the fifty-three varieties were far more menacing, I am afraid, than those of the fifty-seven," said his father, with a smile, "for travel under such a régime was positively unsafe."
"I can see that it would be. What did they do?"
"Well, after every sort of suggestion had been presented it was decided to divide the country up into four immense parts, separated from one another by imaginary lines running north and south."
"Degrees of longitude?"
"Precisely!" returned Mr. Tolman, gratified that the boy had caught the point so intelligently. "The time of each of these sections jumped fifteen degrees, or one hour, and the railroads lying in each district were obliged to conform to the standard time of their locality. Until this movement went into effect there had been, for example, six so-called standard times to reckon with in going from Boston to Washington."
"I don't see why everybody didn't get smashed up!"
"I don't either; and I fancy the passengers and the railroad people didn't," declared Mr. Tolman. "But with the new state of things the snarl was successfully untangled and the roads began to be operated on a more scientific basis. Then followed gradual improvements in cars which as time wenton were made more comfortable and convenient. The invention of the steam engine and the development of our steel products were the two great factors that made our American railroads possible. With the trans-continental roads to carry materials and the opening up of our coal, iron and copper mines we were at last in a position to make our railroads successful. Then science began to evolve wonderful labor-saving machinery which did away with the slow, primitive methods our pioneer engineers had been obliged to employ. The steam shovel was invented, the traveling crane, the gigantic derrick, the pile driver. The early railroad builders had few if any of these devices and were forced to do by hand the work that machinery could have performed in much less time. When one thinks back it is pathetic to consider the number of lives that were sacrificed which under present-day conditions might have been saved. Yet every great movement goes forward over the dead bodies of unnamed heroes. To an extent this is unavoidable and one of the enigmas of life. If every generation were as wise at the beginning as it is at the end there would be no progress. Nevertheless, when you reflect that ten thousand Chinese and Chilean laborers died while building one of the South American railroads it does make us wonder why we should be the ones to reap the benefits of so much that others sowed, doesn't it?" mused the boy's father.
"Do you mean to say that ten thousand personswere killed while that railroad was being built?" questioned Stephen, aghast.
"They were not all killed," was the reply. "Many of them died of exposure to cold, and many from the effects of the climate. Epidemics swept away hundreds of lives. This particular railroad was one of the mightiest engineering feats the world had seen for in its path lay the Andes Mountains, and there was no escape from either crossing or tunneling them. The great tunnel that pierces them at a height of 15,645 feet above sea level is one of the marvels of science. In various parts of the world there are other such monuments to man's conquest of the opposing forces of nature. Honeycombing the Alps are spiral tunnels that curve round and round like corkscrews inside the mountains, rising slowly to the peaks and making it possible to reach the heights that must be traversed. Among these marvels is the Simplon Tunnel, famous the world over. The road that crosses the Semmering Pass from Trieste to Vienna is another example of what man can do if he must. By means of a series of covered galleries it makes its way through the mountains that stretch like a wall between Italy and Austria. In the early days this territory with its many ravines and almost impassable heights would have been considered too difficult to cross. The railroad over the Brenner Pass between Innsbruck and Botzen penetrates the mountains of the Tyrol by means of twenty-three tunnels."
"I learned about the St. Gothard tunnel in school," Steve interrupted eagerly.
"Yes, that is yet another of the celebrated ones," his father rejoined. "In fact, there are now so many of these miracles of skilful railroading that we have almost ceased to wonder at them. Railroads thread their way up Mt. Washington, Mt. Rigi, and many another dizzy altitude; to say nothing of the cable-cars and funicular roads that take our breath away when they whirl us to the top of some mountain, either in Europe or in our own land. Man has left scarce a corner of our planet inaccessible, until now, not content with scaling the highest peaks by train, he has progressed still another stage and is flying over them. Thus do the marvels of one age become the commonplace happenings of the next. Our ancestors doubtless thought, when they had accomplished the miracles of their generation, that nothing could surpass them. In the same spirit we regard our aeroplanes and submarines with triumphant pride. But probably the time will come when those who follow us will look back on what we have done and laugh at our attempts just as you laughed when I told you of the first railroad."
Stephen was thoughtful for a moment.
"It's a great game—living—isn't it, Dad?"
"It is a great game if you make yourself one of the team and pull on the side of the world's betterment," nodded his father. "Think what such a thing as the railroad has meant to millions andmillions of people. Not only has it opened up a country which might have been shut away from civilization for centuries; but it has brought men all over the world closer together and made it possible for those of one land to visit those of another and come into sympathy with them. Japan, China, and India, to say nothing of the peoples of Europe, are almost our neighbors in these days of ships and railroads."
"I suppose we should not have known much about those places, should we," reflected the boy.
"Certainly not so much as we do now," was his father's answer. "Of course, travelers did go to those countries now and then; but to get far into their interior in a palanquin carried by coolies, for example, was a pretty slow business."
"And uncomfortable, too," Stephen decided. "I guess the natives were mighty glad to see the railroads coming."
To the lad's surprise his father shook his head.
"I am afraid they weren't," observed he ruefully. "You recall how even the more civilized and better educated English and French opposed the first railroads? Well, the ignorant orientals, who were a hundred times more superstitious, objected very vehemently. The Chinese in particular feared that the innovation would put to flight the spirits which they believed inhabited the earth, air, and water. Surely, they argued, if these gods were disturbed, disaster to the nation must inevitably follow. It was almost impossible to convinceeven the more intelligent leaders that the railroad would be a benefit instead of a menace for before the ancient beliefs argument was helpless."
"Well, the railroads were built just the same, weren't they?"
"Yes. Fortunately some of the more enlightened were led to see the wisdom of the enterprise, and they converted the others to their views or else overrode their protests. They were like a lot of children who did not know what was best for them and as such they had to be treated. Nevertheless, you may be quite certain that the pioneer days of railroad building in the East were not pleasant ones. Materials had to be carried for great distances both by water and by land. In 1864, when the first locomotive was taken to Ceylon, it had to be transported on a raft of bamboo and drawn from the landing place to the track by elephants."
"Humph!" chuckled Steve. "It's funny to think of, isn't it?"
"More funny to think of than to do, I guess," asserted his father. "Still it is the battle against obstacles that makes life interesting, and in spite of all the hardships I doubt if those first railroad men would have missed the adventure of it all. Out of their resolution, fearlessness and vision came a wonderful fulfillment, and it must have been some satisfaction to know that they had done their share in bringing it about."
"I suppose that is what Mr. Ackerman meantwhen he spoke of the history of steamboating," said the boy slowly.
"Yes. He and his family had a hand in that great game and I do not wonder he is proud of it. And speaking of Mr. Ackerman reminds me that he called up this afternoon to ask if you would like to take a motor-ride with him to-morrow morning while I am busy."
"You bet I would!" was the fervent reply.
"I thought as much, so I made the engagement for you. He is coming for you at ten o'clock. And he will have quite a surprise for you, too."
"What is it?" the boy asked eagerly.
"It is not my secret to tell," was the provoking answer. "You will know it in good time."
"To-morrow?"
"I think so, yes."
"Can't you tell me anything about it?"
"Nothing but that you were indirectly responsible for it."
"I!" gasped Stephen.
Mr. Tolman laughed.
"That will give you something to wonder and to dream about," he responded, rising from the table. "Let us see how much of a Sherlock Holmes you are."
Steve's mind immediately began to speculate rapidly on his father's enigmatic remark. All the way up in the elevator he pondered over the conundrum; and all the evening he turned it over in his mind. At last, tired with the day's activities, hewent to bed, hoping that dreams might furnish him with a solution of the riddle. But although he slept hard no dreams came and morning found him no nearer the answer than he had been before.
He must wait patiently for Mr. Ackerman to solve the puzzle.