A railroad man with a flag made several swift moves. Down the track an
engineman, in his cab, answered with a short blast of, the whistle.
Then he threw over the lever, and a train of ten flat cars started along
in the engine's wake.
It was the first test--the "small test," Tom called it--of the track
that now extended across the surface of the Man-killer.
On each flat car were piled ten tons of steel rails, to be used further
along in the construction work. With engine, cars and all, the load
amounted to one hundred and fifty tons, the pressure of which would be
exerted over a comparatively short strip of the new track that now
glistened over the Man-killer.
Mounted on his pony, Harry Hazelton had galloped a considerable distance
down the track. Now, halted, he had turned his pony's head about,
watching eagerly the on-coming train.
For two weeks the laborers had been working on the roadbed now running
over the Man-killer. Ties had been laid and rails fastened down.
Apparently the Man-killer had done its worst and had been balked, a
seemingly secure roadbed now resting on the once treacherous quicksand.
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