Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/11



that railroad was put through the job was done hastily, the builders being in a hurry to get in on the business of handling the vast droves of livestock which cattlemen herded up from Texas and the Cherokee Nation, where they leased grazing land from the Indians. It was the second line to stretch across Kansas from east to west and, being from a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles south of the original road, it offered a big saving to stockmen in the matter of wear and tear and incidental expenses. It reached into the cattle country with the inexorable arm of competition, cutting off at one stroke its rival's business in that field.

But it was a mushy, squashy railroad after a rain, or when the spring thaws came, the ties being laid on the earth roadbed just as the graders' slushers had left it; tamped with earth, the centers filled with earth, which is poor material to hold track in line when the frost breaks and the rains come, as any section boss will testify.

Now, after some years of this mud-spattering, the tarriers were on the job, resurfacing the track with rock ballast, straightening a curve here, reducing a grade there, replacing the light, clattering, strap-jointed iron with heavy steel, making a real railroad