The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer

  CHAPTER XV

  "WHICH TOWN WILL THE R.R. STRIKE?"

  The drummer's information soon received corroboration from othersources, and although it seemed almost unbelievable, it was discussedincessantly and excitement ran high. These pioneers, who had braved thehardships of homestead life had felt that without the railroad they wereindeed cut off from civilization. To them the advent of the surveyors inOristown could mean only one thing--that their dreams of enjoying themany advantages of the railroad train, would soon materialize.

  They fell to enumerating these advantages--the mail daily, instead ofonly once or twice a week; the ease with which they could make necessarytrips to the neighboring towns; and most of all--the increase in thevalue of the land. With this last subject they became so wrought up withexcitement and anxiety as to the truth of the report, that they couldstay away from the scene of action no longer. Accordingly, buggies andvehicles of all descriptions began coming into Oristown from alldirections. I hitched Doc and my new horse, Boliver, for which I hadpaid one hundred and forty dollars, to an old ramshackle buggy I hadbought for ten dollars, and joined the procession.

  Three miles west of Oristown we came upon a crowd of circus-dayproportion, and in their midst were the surveyors.

  In their lead rode the chief engineer--a slender, wiry man with a blackmustache and piercing eyes, that seemed to observe every feature ofsurrounding prairie. Behind came a wagon loaded with stakes, accompaniedby several men, the leader of whom was setting these stakes according tothe signal of the engineer from behind the transit. Others, on eitherside, were also driving stakes. They were not only running a straightsurvey, but were cross-sectioning as they went.

  Even though the presence of these surveyors was now an established fact,these were days of grave uncertainties as to just what route the roadwould take. The suspense was almost equal to that of the criminal, as heawaits the verdict of the jury. The valleys and divides lay in such amanner that it was possible the survey would extend along the Monca,thus passing through Calias. On the other hand, it was probable that itwould continue to the Northwest through Kirk and Megory, thus missingCalias altogether.

  When the surveyors reached a point five miles west of Hedrick, theyswerved to the northwest and advanced directly toward Kirk. This lookedbad for Calias.

  When Ernest Nicholson had learned that the surveyors were in Oristown,he had left immediately for parts unknown and had not returned. He wasin reality the founder of Calias and many of the inhabitants looked tohim as their leader, and depended upon him for advice. Although he hadmany enemies who heaped abuse and epithets upon him--calling him a liar,braggard and "wind jammer" when boasting of their own independence andself respect--now that a calamity was about to befall them, and theirfond hopes for this priceless mistress of prairie were about to bewrecked upon the shoals of an imaginary railroad survey, they turnedtoward him for comfort, as moths turn to a flame. It was Ernest here andErnest there. As the inevitable progress of the surveyors proceeded in adirect line for Hedrick, Kirk and Megory, the consternation of theCaliasites became more intense as time went on, and the anxiety forErnest to return almost resolved itself into mutiny. It became sosignificant, that at one time it appeared that if Ernest had onlyappeared, the railroad company would have voluntarily run its surveydirectly to Calias, in order to avoid the humiliation of Ernest'sseizing them by the nape of the neck and marching them, survey, cars andall, right into the little hamlet.

  Now there was one thing everybody seemed to forget or to overlook, butwhich occurred to me at the time, and caused me to become skeptical asto the possibilities of the road striking Calias, and that was, if therailroad was to be built up the Monca Valley, then why had the surveyorscome to Oristown, and why had they not gotten off at Anona, the laststation in the Monca Valley, where the tracks climb the grade toFairview.

  Many of the Megory and Kirk boosters had taken advantage of Ernest'sabsence, and through enthusiasm attending the advent of the railroadsurvey, persuaded several of Calias' business men to go into fusion intheir respective towns. The remaining handful consoled each other byprophecies of what Ernest would do when he returned, and plied eachother for expressions of theories, and ways and means of injectingenthusiasm into the local situation. Thousands of theories were givenexpression, consideration, and rejection, and the old one that allrailroads follow valleys and streams was finally adhered to. I wassingled out to give corroborative proof of this last, by reason of myrailroad experience.

  I was suddenly seized with a short memory, much to my embarrassment, asI felt all eyes turned upon me. However, the crowd were looking forencouragement and spoke up in chorus: "Don't the railroads always followvalleys?" It suddenly occurred to me, that with all the thousands ofmiles of travel to my credit and the many different states I hadtraveled through, with all their rough and smooth territory, I had notobserved whether the tracks followed the valleys or otherwise. However,I intimated that I thought they did. "Of course they do", my remark wasanswered in chorus.

  Since then I have noticed that a railway does invariably follow avalley, if it is a large one; and small rivers make excellent routes,but never crooked little streams like the Monca. When it comes to suchcreeks, and there is a table land above, as soon as the road can getout, it usually stays out. This was the situation of the C. & R.W. Itcame some twenty-five or thirty miles up the Monca, from where itempties into the Missouri. There are fourteen bridges across in thatmany miles, which were and still are, always going out during highwater.

  It came this route because there was no other way to come, but when itgot to Anona, as has been said, it climbed a four per cent grade to getout and it stayed out.