Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1907-01-30

shook their hea s, denied and turned
their faces to the mountains. They
stretched their arms straight out under
their blankets, like stringers, and put
out their palms, downward, and NUT
tered TO HALEY:
"Plenty snow
81 reckon they're lying" said Bucks,
listening. There's some deviltry up.
They're not the kind to clear out for
snow"
Now, the Spider wakes regularly
twice; at all other times irregularly.
Once In April-that is the foothills wa
ter; once in June-that is the mountain
water. And the June rise is like this
-. But the April rise is like this
Now came an April without any rise;
that April nothing rose = except the
snow. "We shall get it all together"
suggested Bucks one night
"Or will it get us altogether?" asked
HALEY.
"Either way" said Callahan, sit will
be mostly at once"
May opened bleaker than April; even
the trackmen walked with set faces;
the dirtiest half breed on the line knew
now what the mountains held. At last,
while we looked and wondered, came a
the water.
Section gangs were doubled and
track walkers put on. By-passes We're
opened, bridge crews strengthened, ev-
erything buckled for grief. Gullies
began to race, culverts to choke, creeks
to tumble, rivers to madden. From
the Muddy to the Summit the water
courses swelled and boiled--all but the
Spider; the big river slept. Through May
and into June the Spider slept but Hal
ley was there at the Wickiup always and
with one eye running over all the line,
where two men and two, night and
day, watched the lazy surface water
trickle over and through the vagabond
bed between Hailey's monumental
piers. Never an hour did the operating
department lose to the track. East and
west of us railroads everywhere clam
ored in despair. The flood reached
from the Rockies to the Alleghenies
Our trains never missed a trip; our
schedules were unbroken; our people
laughed; we got the business, dead
loads of it; our treasury flowed over,
and HALEY watched, and the Spider
slept.
Big Ed Peeto, still foreman of the
bridges, hung on Haileys steps and
tried with his staring, swearing eye to
make it all out; to guess what HALEY
expected to happen, for it was plain he
was thinking. Whether smoking or
speaking, whether waking or sleeping
he was thinking. And as May turned
soft and hot into June with every ditch
bellying and the mountains still buried,
it put us all thinking.
On the Both there was trouble be-
yond Wild Hat, and all our extra men,
put out there under Haley, were fight
ing to hold the Rat valley levels where
they hug the river on the west slope
1t wasn't really Hailey's track. sRucks
sent him over lnetv pvcause ne senI
HALEY wherever the emperor sent Ney.
Sunday while HALEY was at Wild Hat
it began raining. Sunday it rained;
Monday it rained all through the noun
tains; Tuesday it was raining from
mometer climbing for breath and the
barometer fiat as an adder-and the
Spider woke.
Woke with the April water and the
June water and the rain water all at
once. Trackmen at the bridge Tuesday
night tagged No. 1 and reported the
river wild and sheet ice running. A
wire from Bucks brought HALEY out
of the west and into the east and
brought him to reckon for the last time
with his ancient enemy.
He was against it Wednesday morn
ing with dynamite. All the day, the
night and the next day the sullen roar
of the giant powder shook the ice jams.
Two days more he spent there watch
ing, with only an occasional thunder
bolt to heave and scatter the Spider
water into sudden, shivery columns Of
spray; then he wired, "Ice out" and
set back dragged and silent for home
and for sleep-ten hours out of two
hundred, maybe, was all he reckoned
to the good when he struck a pillow
again. Saturday night he slept, and
Sunday all day, and Sunday night.
Monday about noon Bucks sent up to
ask, but HALEY was asleep. They
asked back by the lad whether they
should wake him; Bucks sent word,
mo"
Tuesday morning the tall roadmaster
came down fresh as sunshine, and all
day he worked with Bucks and the dis
patchers watching the line. The Spider
raced like the Missouri, and the men
at the bridge sent in panic messages
every night and morning, but HALEY
lit his pipe with their alarms. THAT
bridge will go when the mountains