Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/144

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CHAPTER XIII
THE TURN IN THE STORM

THE beginning of the Crawling Stone Line marked the first determined effort under President Bucks, while undertaking the reconstruction of the system for through traffic, to develop the rich local territory tributary to the mountain division. New policies in construction dated from the same period. Glover, with an enormous capital staked for the new undertakings, gave orders to push the building every month in the year, and for the first time in mountain railroad-building winter was to be ignored. The older mountain men met the innovation as they met any departure from their traditions, with curiosity and distrust. On the other hand, the new and younger blood took hold with confidence, and when Glover called, “Yo, heave ho!” at headquarters, they bent themselves clear across the system for a hard pull together.

McCloud, resting the operating on the shoulders of his assistant Anderson, devoted himself wholly to forwarding the construction plans, and his first clash over winter road-building in the Rockies came

122