The trail makers

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A Hungry Monster i

II. Camp Number One 16

CHAPTER I “ Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug ”

The great dipper of a steamshovel sank its teeth into a high bank of earth, burrowed there for a moment; then swung up and out to the waiting cars.

The monster earth-moving machine was eating its way through one of the hills which rib Western Tennessee — clay for the first thirty feet and rock below.

Through the deep cut thus bitten out, a railroad was to be laid. Upon its completion those hills, in the midst of a wilderness, would echo for the first time to the shrieks and snorts of a locomotive.

Two men stood watching the hungry giant at its task. One, about twenty-eight years of age, wore leather leggins, which, taken in connection with his surroundings, showed him to be a civil engineer. He was, in fact, overseeing the work of i construction for the railroad company. The other, older, keen of eye but lacking the lithe, strong frame of his younger companion, at first glance might have been thought a successful business man from the city, curious to see a railroad in the making. In reality he was the young man’s chief, a noted engineer, who carried whole railroads around in his brain and occasionally ran down from his city office to see how work on this one was getting on.

The younger engineer was explaining to his chief what had been done and what remained to be done. He spoke in the soft accent of the South, a joy to hear, but so difficult to put on paper that it may as well be imagined as described.

“ Do you know, suh? ” he was saying. “ Whenever I see a steamshovel at wo’k, it seems right sma’t human.”

But a real “human,” if that human happened to be an American boy, would have been told to take smaller mouthfuls, instead of being urged to greater efforts.

Imagine, if you can, a mouthful of pie — blueberry pie, if you please — four feet long, three and a half feet wide and nearly six feet thick, dripping with juice and lusciousness. That is what the steamshovel was doing, three cubic yards at every mouthful; biting into a hillside, however, instead of into pie. And that was only a small shovel compared with some. There are giant machines which bite off eight cubic yards at a mouthful — a cube of soil, measuring six feet long, six feet wide, six feet in thickness, and weighing some fifteen tons.

To see a machine like that at work is a wonderful sight and “ right smart human,” as the engineer said. At least, so thought a young lad who stood at the top of the cut, looking down at the monster eating there with such a ravenous appetite. So intently was the boy watching the work of loading the dump train that he thought of nothing else.

“ Keep away from the edge, Bob,” cautioned the “ shovel-runner,” as the dipper swung back for another load.

The boy nodded and started to step out of danger, but the warning had come too late. The turl on which he was standing had been undermined *by the shovel. At that moment it cracked under Bob’s weight, and down he plunged to the bottom, — turf and boy and dirt, mingled in hopeless confusion.

Shouts of alarm came from the men at work on and around the shovel, for the boy had fallen directly in the path of the descending dipper, which weighed two tons or more. Should it strike him,

the lad would be crushed to death.

With a cry of horror, the young engineer made a rush for the spot, although knowing that he could not get there in time. There was only one person in the world who could save Bob Vreeland at that critical moment. The shovel-runner stood inside the cab which housed the machinery of the shovel, directing the movements of the great boom which swung the dipper. His hands grasped the levers which controlled the monster. Keen of eye, alert, “ on the job” every minute, Jack Shumway had seen the boy fall and realized that only swift action on his part could save him from death.

A quick movement of his arm, and the heavy mass of steel, shaking its huge jaws as if impatient at the interruption, stopped, and hung there not six feet above the struggling boy.

An instant later the engineer reached the place where the lad was trying to regain his footing. It was but the work of a second to drag him from under the dipper and set him on his feet.

“ No harm done, Jack,” called Bob to his friend, the shovel-runner; then smiled his thanks up into the engineer’s face. “ I’ll know better next time.”

“ Chug-a-cnug-a-chug-a-chug sputtered the big shovel once more, sending up black clouds of smoke, while Bob limped toward a group of tents and shanties, known as Camp No. i, which stood not far away. He was not hurt much, but it was almost dinner time and he wanted to be close at hand when the cook’s helper should come out of a certain rough-board building and pound a triangle gong, which hung outside the door, as a welcome signal to the men.

Robert Vreeland, Jr., or Bob, as he was known to his friends, lived in a small town in central Illinois. His father, Robert Vreeland, Sr., was what is called an earth-moving contractor — a builder of railroads.

When Bob first found out that a railroad had to be built by somebody before it could be operated, it was a new idea to him. He liked to ride on the cars. He enjoyed standing at a certain crossing while an approaching train, which looked like a speck in the distance, grew larger and larger, and finally roared by with a rush of wind and burst of speed.

“ That is one of the greatest sights in the world,” his father had told him ; and Bob thought so too, although he had not seen many of the world’s great sights. Like most people, however, he never had thought much about how the railroad happened to be there for him to look at and ride upon.

“ Railroads don’t grow like Topsy,” his father laughed, when talking to Bob one day in the early spring. “ Some folks seem to think they do and all that is necessary is to start one running; but the fact remains that railroads first have to be built and it takes a lot of money and hard work to build one, to say nothing about keeping it going after it has been built.”

“ How do you build them? ” questioned Bob.

“ Ask me something easy. It has taken me twenty years to learn how and even now I find out something new every day, this year especially.”

“ When will school be out for the spring vacation?” he asked, as a thought struck him.

Bob did not have to look at the calendar to answer that question. He had been counting the days for more than a month.

“ How would you like to spend your vacation down on the work and see for yourself how they are built? ”

“ Great! ” shouted the boy.

He was too busy to say anything more. He threw himself forward on his hands and kicked his heels high in the air.

His father grabbed up a piece of board and paddied him good-naturedly; then marched him off in triumph. They were great chums, these two, as father and son ought to be.

“ I judge from your actions that you are willing? ”

“ Betcher life I am!”

“ All right, son. Let’s go in and talk it over with your mother. Maybe you will be able to help me some, Bob, in addition to having a good time — enough to earn a little spending money, although there is not much chance to spend money in a railroad camp. I need all the help I can get. The labor situation was bad enough before, but with our own country drifting into the war, I don’t know what we are going to do.”

“ Can’t you get men enough? ”

“ I manage to keep going, but labor is becoming more scarce every day, and wages higher. The war in Europe has drained this country of thousands of foreign laborers who have gone back home to fight, and there are no others coming to take their places. In addition, they have been combing the country for engineers, quarry men, and men from every department of railroad and road work. They need them in France. Worse than that, as I told you, the United States is drifting into the war as fast as it can. We’ll get into it, as sure as preaching, and mighty soon, to my way of thinking. There is no telling what will happen then. What do you think about it? ”

Mr. Vreeland was in the habit of talking things over with his young son, sharing his views when they seemed right and pointing out the error when wrong. He believed that a boy should know what is going on in the world, and why, and should be encouraged to think for himself.

“ I am going to help all I can, that is what I think/* Bob told him. “ I am a Boy Scout, and that is what Boy Scouts are for. I don’t know, much about building railroads but there will be something which I can do. I can run errands, anyhow.”

“ It’s a bargain then,” said the contractor, “ that is, if your mother does not object, and I am sure she will not. While you are helping and playing, you will be learning some things which school can’t teach. I only wish you were ten years older. Bob, and twins, at that.”

“ Haven’t you work enough for two boys? ” Bob asked, after his mother had given smiling consent to the plan. “ I’d like to take Bill Wilson along. You said you wished I was twins; that would be the next thing to it.”

“ It would come closer to being triplets,” laughed the contractor. “ Besides I said, ‘ and ten years older/ I am afraid that two boys wouldn’t get much work done. You’d have so much playing and talking to do. Then, again, we are short of shanties and you might have to sleep in a tent and go fishing a good deal to help feed the men. That would be a bad situation. Now, if it were not for that tent business and the fishing ”

With a joyous shout Bob sprang into his father’s arms and gave him a quick hug; then shot through the doorway.

“ I am going over to tell Bill,” he called, as he passed out of sight.

Mr. Vreeland looked at his wife and laughed. “It is a little more than I bargained for,” he said. “ Neither one of them will earn his salt, but they will have some great experience and will be company for each other and for me. This railroadbuilding game keeps me away from home more than I like.”

“ Bill ” had been spending the winter with his aunt, who lived not far from the Vreeland home, and the two boys had become warm friends. His folks, Massachusetts people, who long had wanted to spend a winter in California, had chosen the winter of 1916-1917 for their outing. The serious problem of “ what to do with Willie ” in the meantime, had been solved, greatly to that young man’s delight, by sending him out to Aunt Martha Cargill’s in Illinois at the beginning of the school year, where he could continue his studies in a good school under the watchful care of his mother's sister.

Bob was a chunky, sturdy lad with a thoughtful face, cheeks as red as apples, and a good nature which it seemed as if nothing could disturb. Bill was more slender and the more active of the two. He was good-natured also, but there was a limit to what he would stand, as some of his mates had found out.

Bob was what is called mechanical. He liked to make things and knew how to make things. In some way he had obtained blue prints of a locomotive and spent hours studying out the different valves, pipes and rods. Bob would rather fuss with a steam engine any time than play ball, which was unusual in a boy and made his folks wonder what was going on back of those bright eyes.

Bill was all boy, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. Probably, if the truth were known, he would rather have played ball than eat, but he loved and admired his new friend so much that when Bob wanted to play with an engine that seemed quite the thing to do.

ii

Soon after his arrival the two boys had rigged up a steam generator in the Vreeland back yard. Not having a pump, in order to get the needed pressure they had fastened a keg of water in the crotch of an apple tree, with pipes leading down to a coil in a furnace, which they had built below with some old bricks from the alley. Saturdays, and after school at night, until the weather became too cold, they spent happy hours at this play.

One day while poring over a pile of catalogues which Bob had collected at the expense of some of Chicago's enterprising business men, they came across the picture of a wonderful brass whistle, which would make an unearthly screeching. It took a long time to save up money enough to buy it, but at last a package came by express, which when opened was found to contain the longed-for siren. When they were able to get up enough steam to sound this whistle, the boys were proud and happy. The neighbors were not so happy, but neighbors do not always understand.

One Saturday, after a great deal of hard work, to which they probably would have objected very much if they had been asked to do it by their folks, they managed to nail a long mast to the ridge-pole of the Vreeland barn, which was used as a garage. The mast was so rigged with cords that a lighted lantern could be pulled to the top of the pole at night. That was a crowning joy, for a neighbor, whose eyesight had begun to fail, thought he had discovered a new star when he saw the light for the first time, and hurried into the house in great excitement to get his field glass.

Both were Boy Scouts and very patriotic. Already at the outbreak of the war in Europe, Bob had made some remarkable looking drawings of a submarine, calculated to sink a whole enemy navy on sight, and these, at his father’s suggestion, given with twinkling eyes but sober face, had been sent to a Cabinet official, wdiom Mr. Vreeland happened to know. Some time afterward a Government envelope, addressed to “Mr. Robert Vreeland, Jr.,” arrived at the contractor’s house. It contained a letter formally thanking the young inventor for his submarine drawings, w r hich seemed to be very complete, “ lacking nothing but a front porch.”

With cheeks blazing like the new star above the barn, Bob burst into the Cargill yard and found his friend playing with his ball.

“ Bill,” he shouted, “ what do you know about it? Where do you think we are going? ”

“ Crazy, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Bill, throwing Bob the ball. “Anyhow, one of us is. You can have two guesses.”

“ Crazy nothing! Father is going to take us South and let us help him build a railroad. Only, he says, we’ll have to sleep in a tent and go fishing. Ain’t it terrible? ”

“Great snakes! I couldn’t stand that,” grinned Bill. “ Break it to me gently, can’t you? ”

“ What do you say; will you go? ”

“Will a duck swim? You bet I’ll go if Aunt Martha will let me, and I ’most know she will.”

It didn’t take long to get the consent of Mrs. Cargill. She knew that “ Willie would be in good hands,” and his absence for a short time would be something of a relief to that good lady, who wasn’t used to boys.

“ I think it is a real opportunity,” she said, with growing enthusiasm, “ but, Robert, your father must promise to make Willie work. That is part of the bargain. It costs money to feed a healthy boy these days, and Willie is a hearty eater. I don’t know just what they do in construction camps but surely there is some suitable work for a husky boy, who is so full of energy that he can not keep still. I actually am afraid of the police sometimes, he makes so much noise.”

“ I have learned to run a car,” declared Bill, proudly.

“ I guess they have something to do in a railroad camp besides riding around in automobiles/’

“ It isn’t that, Mrs. Cargill,” said Bob, to whom Bill’s words had given an idea. “ Dad has an old car at the camp. He drives it himself whenever he wants to go from one part of the work to another. The railroad stretches over a good many miles, you know. But I’ll bet they have to send to town every day for something, and Bill and I could do that. It would save sending a man and ought to help a lot besides being fun.”

The question of their going having been settled to their delight, the two lads sat down on the doorstep, in the warm spring sunshine, to make their plans, and that, as every boy knows, is a great part of the fun, whether it be planning for Christmas, Fourth of July, a vacation, or just a day’s fishing.

“ Bill,” said Bob, after they had talked several minutes, “ we are going to have the time of our young lives, and don’t you forget it; only the vacation will be too short. Dad told me that there were several camps. When we get tired of one, maybe he’ll let us go to another.”

“ No danger of our getting tired. Will we have time to go fishing? ”

“ Sure thing. Take your fishing tackle with you. Dad says he wants us to go fishing to help pay for our board.”

“How do they build railroads, anyhow?’*

“ Search me. But betcher life I am going to find out. Maybe I will build railroads like Dad when I grow up; it’s time that I was learning something about it.”

It had seemed hard to wait for school to close, but the time passed quickly, after all, and the first day of vacation found the two friends on a train, speeding southward.

Chapter II

“ Camp No. i,” where Bob and Bill were to spend the next few weeks, was just an ordinary construction camp. There are thousands of such camps scattered over the country every summer, and many during the winter, particularly in the South where the winters are short and mild.

Few people know anything about them or about the work they are doing. Once in a while a group of boys, tramping across the fields in search of those joys which are known only to boyhood, may come upon a cluster of tents far from town, and wonder what it all is about. Occasionally, automobilists in their journeys about the country may glimpse the canvas, or shanties, of some outlying camp by the roadside. But for the most part the hardy men who dwell in these tented places do their work alone. The outside world sees only the results long afterward.

It is a great work which they are doing. A railroad is built to open up a new section of the country. A county road is improved and laid with a 16 hard surface of macadam, concrete, or brick. Canals and irrigating ditches are dug in order that the dry plains of the far West can be watered and made to grow crops. Great banks of earth, called levees, are piled up along the Mississippi River to keep the “ Father of Waters ” from going on a tear through adjoining plantations, when he gets full. A swift-flowing stream is dammed with a massive wall of concrete, or earth, stone-faced, that there may be power for busy factories, or water for distant cities. A tunnel is bored through some mountain that stands in the way of progress.

By such work men continually are reshaping the earth’s surface to suit their own convenience and purposes. God has used many tools in His mighty task of creation — the slow-moving glacier, the flowing stream — but greatest of all such tools is man himself, and the countless machines which man has made to help him in his work.

Glaciers and rivers, however, do not have to eat, or sleep, or play. Men do. Before work can begin on railroads, dams or tunnels, places must be provided where the workmen can sleep and rest. No matter how far away in some wilderness this work is there must be food for the men to eat — good food and plenty of it. More important still, there must be water for them to drink, even in the midst of a desert. Men must be well fed and made fairly comfortable, or they will not stay on the job.

Cities are born and grow in the same way, only these are to be lasting and are built accordingly, while the construction camp is for a short time only. Sometimes, when the work undertaken is expected to last several years, during which time the camp need not be moved, as when a huge dam is to be built, the camp is made very like a city, with comfortable houses, well heated in winter; regularly laid out streets; electric lights; machine shops and power plants; a baseball park and moving picture show; sometimes schools for the workmen’s children; — for everything possible must be done to get men to stay in the wilderness until the job has been completed.

Others, where there is only one season’s work or where the camp must be moved from time to time as the work progresses, have only such conveniences as are necessary to the comfort of the men. Camp No. I was one of these, although it seemed a remarkable place to Bob and Bill when they first drove up in Mr. Vreeland’s car a little before noon.

What they saw was a scattered group of shanties and tents, perhaps twenty altogether, in among some trees which fringed the bank of a small stream. From over beyond came the chugchugging of a monster machine, out of sight itself, but throwing black clouds of smoke high in the air. Noisy locomotives were pulling and pushing trains to and fro.

“ Here is your tent, boys,” said Mr. Vreeland, leading the way. “You will be welcome to use my shanty over there whenever you like, but the idea of living in a tent seemed to suit you pretty well.”

“ It’ll be great! ’’ Bob exclaimed.

“ You betcher life ! ” Bill echoed, with enthusiasm.

“ Now, make yourselves at home. I must leave you for a time, for I have a bushel of work to get out of the way before dinner.”

Having placed their bags in the tent, the boys strolled around the camp. After a while they came to a rough board building, a sign on which read, “The Robert Vreeland Construction Co. — Office.”

Just then somebody opened the door and went in, and the boys followed, hesitatingly, not sure whether they would be wanted there or not. Mr. Vreeland sat at a desk, talking with the man who had gone in before them.

A young chap, about eighteen years of age, sat just inside a railing, busily pounding a typewriter.

The boys noticed him particularly because his hair was so very red and his face seemed a mass of freckles. One of his keen, blue eyes winked at them solemnly, when the owner caught sight of the unusual visitors.

Bob wasn’t sure at first about the wink because the typewriter had not missed a single beat and no further notice had been taken of their presence. Then the other eye winked just as solemnly, and while the lads looked on in astonishment two freckled ears moved up and down in a way which it plainly never had been intended that human ears should move, and the scalp under the shock of red hair twitched unmistakably.

At that moment the contractor caught sight of the boys and motioned for them to come in.

“ Here is where I work,” he told them, “ when I am not working somewhere else.”

“ Red,” he called, turning toward the youth at the typewriter, “ how near are you through with that letter? ”

“ Just finishing, sir.”

“ When you get through, show these boys around and see that they get something to eat when the time comes. How about it, Bob? Do you think you will be able to eat anything? ”

“ Maybe I can sit up and take a little nourishment,” said Bob, who was half starved by that time.

Red grinned and gave the boys an approving glance; then laid the letter on the contractor’s desk.

“All right, fellows; let’s go,” he said, reaching for his hat.

“Are you the old m — er — Mr. Vreeland’s sons?” he asked, after they had gone outside.

“ Bill isn’t, but I am,” Bob told him. “ My name is Robert Bradford Vreeland, but folks ’most always call me Bob. This is Bill Wilson; my chum. We came down to spend our vacation in camp.”

“ Then you ain’t German spies ! ” exclaimed Red, with a sigh of relief.

“We wouldn’t do such a thing. What makes you say that? ”

“Nothing, only I heard th — Mr. Vreeland tell somebody to keep his eyes peeled because there was a lot of spy business going on.”

“We came dowrn to learn how to build a railroad.”

“Jiminy! That is exactly what I came down for. It is a great business. You either make a lot of money or you go broke, and it’s interesting either way.”

“My name is Hurley,” he went on, after a minute, “James Ascalon Hurley, but as you’ll probably be calling me * Red * before you have been here a day and a half you may as well begin now. Perhaps you’ve noticed that my hair is sort of reddish? ”

“Great snakes!” said Bill. “I’m glad you told us that. I was afraid that maybe I was colorblind.”

“ I wear it this way,” explained the new friend, “red being a fast color. We have to work lively here.”

The boys laughed and already felt well acquainted.

“ Here is the commissary,” said Red, leading the way through an open door into a small building.

“ What’s a commissary? ”

“ It’s a sort of department store like Field’s up in Chicago, only here the departments are all on one shelf. You see, we’re a long way from town and have to carry a stock of all the things which the men might need. They can buy almost anything here from candy and pop to rubber boots and navy beans. Every camp has to have a commissary. I know of one where they carry a $15,000 stock; it is like a regular country store. We don’t need that much here.”

“ What is that long building over there? ”

“ Keep your eyes glued to that, boy. That is where you will take the nourishment you told us about a while ago.”

The boys looked inside and saw a roughly boarded room, with a board table on each side, running nearly the whole length. There were no chairs. Benches, each made of a single plank, had been built around the tables, much like those sometimes found in picnic grounds.

Except for the food still on the stove, these tables were ready for dinner. At each place were a heavy cup and saucer, plate, iron spoon, knife and fork. Scattered through the middle of the table stood plates heaped high with bread, various kinds of pies, and other good things.

This room opened into a kitchen, where the cook and his helpers were getting the noonday meal.

“ It smells good to me,” said Bob, sniffing the pleasing odors.

“ We’ll have just about time to glance at the quarters of the men before the gong,” said Red, looking at his watch.

Most of the men were living in tents like their own. There were a few shanties, however, made of rough lumber and heavy tar paper. The foreign-born laborers had a group of tents by themselves and ate at their own boarding houses.

The familiar sound of an anvil attracted the boys and they soon found a brawny blacksmith hard at work at his forge. It was an outdoor shop, the only shelter being a board roof overhead.

“We can’t send to the city every time a shovel or car needs fixing,” said Red. “All the small repair work is done in our field shops and it saves a lot of time and money. Some camps have regular machine shops with power lathes and all that sort of thing, but we couldn’t afford that for a six months’ job.”