XII.
With the return of fine weather the work of railroad construction on the
extension of the G. T. & C. line began to be pressed forward with eager
alacrity. Indeed, it had languished only when the ground was deeply
covered with snow or locked so fast in the immobile freeze that steel and
iron could not penetrate it. The work had been persistently pushed at
practicable intervals, whenever the labor could be constrained to it.
Possibly this urgency had no ill results except in one or two individual
cases. The sons of toil are indurated to hardship, and most of the gang
were brawny Irish ditchers. Jubal Clenk, already outworn with age and ill
nourished throughout a meagre life, unaccustomed, too, to exposure to the
elements (for the industry of moonshining is a sheltered and well-warmed
business), was the only notable collapse. He began by querulously
demanding of anyone who would listen to him what he himself could mean by
having an "out-dacious pain" under his shoulder-blade.
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