Along the tracks at various levels flowed a
constant current of traffic; long lines of empty cars crept past
the shovels, then, filled to overflowing, sped away northward up
the valley, to return again and again. Nowhere was there any
idleness, nowhere a cold machine or a man at rest. On every hand
was smoke and steam and sweat. The drills chugged steadily, the
hungry iron hogs gouged out the trails the drills had loosened,
the trains rolled past at intervals of a moment or so. Lines of
electric wire, carried upon low wooden "shears," paralleled the
tracks, bearing the white-hot sparks that rent the mountain. At
every switch a negro flagman crouched beneath a slanting sheet of
corrugated iron, seeking shelter alike from flying fragments and
the blazing sun. From beneath the drills came occasional
subterranean explosions; then geysers of muddy water rose in the
air. Under the snouts of the steam shovels "dobe" shots went off
as bowlders were riven into smaller fragments. Now and then an
excited tooting of whistles gave warning of a bigger blast as the
flagmen checked the flow of traffic, indicating with arms upraised
that the ground was "coming up." Thereupon a brief lull occurred;
men hid themselves, the work held its breath, as it were.
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