The Railroad War Read Online Free PDF

had moved on to look for new and bigger strikes. The number of passengers traveling on the stage line gauged the decline of the towns; when the coach pulled out of Aurora, Jessie and Ki and Bobby were its only occupants.
    After starting north from Kingman, the stage had passed one heavy freightwagon after another hauling rails and ties north, but it was not until they left Aurora and started up the shallow valley between the Sierras and the Wassuks that they’d seen any actual track laid by the South Sierra Railway Company. The rails were still new, not yet worn shiny, unused by anything heavier than handcars. Several of these had whizzed past the slower stagecoach, with two men pumping the handles while a half-dozen others balanced precariously on the crowded platform.
    â€œIsn’t this a strange way to build a railroad, Jessie?” Ki asked as they watched one of the handcars disappear. “From everything I’ve heard, the rails are usually laid from each end of the line to meet in the middle, but this South Sierra Railway outfit is starting in the middle and building to each end.”
    â€œI don’t know much about building railroads, Ki,” she said. “But from what Bobby’s told us, they’re also laying rails south to Hidden Valley and north to the Southern Pacific mainline.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Bobby chimed in. “Grandpa says they want to get the big shipments out of the mines up north of the valley, at places like Washoe City and Como and Virginia City.”
    â€œWell, that makes sense, at least,” Ki said. “And I suppose there’s a reason for it, but it seems to me they’re counting a lot on getting the right-of-way through Hidden Valley.”
    â€œGrandpa says that, too,” Bobby nodded. “He says us folks in Hidden Valley have got the railroad promoters in a bind. If they can’t buy the land through those passes at the north and south ends of the valley, he says they’ll have to spend a mint of money putting their tracks through the mountains.”
    â€œIf the country around Hidden Valley is anything like what we’re looking at now, I’d agree with your grandpa,” Jessie said.
    â€œIt’s pretty much the same,” Bobby told her. “Lots of ups and downs every place you look.”
    Jessie didn’t say that the geography of the valley was no surprise to her. Before they’d started from the Circle Star, after having given Bobby a few days of rest to recover from his sunstroke, she’d finished reading Alex Starbuck’s early diaries. In them she’d found entries explaining why her father had felt so indebted to Captain Tinker; the entries had also revealed the acute perceptions that had made Starbuck so successful.
    â€œAt midnight, a day out of Tientsin in the Chingchan Strait, boarded by Chinese pirates,” Alex had written in his copperplate script, the words as legible as the day he’d put them down, though the oxgall ink he’d used had faded to a pale purple-tan. “Capt. Tinker at helm, mates and crew belowdecks when pirates attacked. Luckily, I was in my cabin, so I could get to deck to help Tinker. Exhausted pistol ammunition, and Tinker fought to me with cutlass, after suffering grievous sword-slash in thigh. Except for Tinker. I would not have survived the fight and my cargo would have been lost.”
    In another diary, of a later year, she read: “Visited Capt. Tinker, found him in deplorable situation. He was forced to sell the Sea Sprite as the wound received from pirates when he saved my life now prevents him following his profession. Have decided to give him Hidden Valley land for which I outbid the cartel. While the passes at each end of the valley are the only ones in a hundred miles suitable for a railroad line, I have no need for them until my railroad ventures reach the stage where the line I plan can be built. Hidden Valley has enough good