FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  
r's memory within her heart: "She knows--she knows." Catharine of the "Crow's Nest" The great transcontinental railway had been in running order for years before the managers thereof decided to build a second line across the Rocky Mountains. But "passes" are few and far between in those gigantic fastnesses, and the fearless explorers, followed by the equally fearless surveyors, were many a toilsome month conquering the heights, depths and dangers of the "Crow's Nest Pass." Eastward stretched the gloriously fertile plains of southern "Sunny Alberta," westward lay the limpid blue of the vast and indescribably beautiful Kootenay Lakes, but between these two arose a barrier of miles and miles of granite and stone and rock, over and through which a railway must be constructed. Tunnels, bridges, grades must be bored, built and blasted out. It was the work of science, endurance and indomitable courage. The summers in the canyons were seething hot, the winters in the mountains perishingly cold, with apparently inexhaustible snow clouds circling forever about the rugged peaks--snows in which many a good, honest laborer was lost until the eagles and vultures came with the April thaws, and wheeled slowly above the pulseless sleeper, if indeed the wolves and mountain lions had permitted him to lie thus long unmolested. Those were rough and rugged days, through which equally rough and rugged men served and suffered to find foundations whereon to lay those two threads of steel that now cling like a cobweb to the walls of the wonderful "gap" known as Crow's Nest Pass. Work progressed steadily, and before winter set in construction camps were built far into "the gap," the furthermost one being close to the base of a majestic mountain, which was also named "The Crow's Nest." It arose beyond the camp with almost overwhelming immensity. Dense forests of Douglas fir and bull pines shouldered their way up one-third of its height, but above the timber line the shaggy, bald rock reared itself thousands of feet skyward, desolate, austere and deserted by all living things; not even the sure-footed mountain goat travelled up those frowning, precipitous heights; no bird rested its wing in that frozen altitude. The mountain arose, distinct, alone, isolated, the most imperial monarch of all that regal Pass. The construction gang called it "Old Baldy," for after working some months around its base, it began to grow into their l
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

mountain

 

rugged

 

equally

 

heights

 

construction

 

fearless

 
railway
 

overwhelming

 

immensity

 
majestic

suffered

 

foundations

 

whereon

 

threads

 
served
 

unmolested

 
steadily
 

progressed

 

winter

 

cobweb


wonderful
 

forests

 

furthermost

 

shaggy

 

distinct

 
isolated
 

imperial

 

altitude

 

frozen

 

precipitous


rested

 

monarch

 

months

 

working

 

called

 
frowning
 

travelled

 
timber
 

reared

 

height


shouldered

 
thousands
 

footed

 

things

 

living

 

skyward

 
desolate
 

austere

 
deserted
 
Douglas