from the East, while up from the Golden Gate came another train
bringing the flower of 'Frisco to witness, and some of them to take an
active part in, the celebration. The day was like twenty-nine other May
days that month in the Salt Lake Valley, fair and warm, but with a cool
breeze blowing over the sagebrush. The dusty army of trail-makers had
been resting for two days, waiting for the people to come in clean store
clothes, to make speeches, to eat and drink, and drive the golden spike.
Some Chinese laborers had opened a temporary laundry near the camp, and
were coining money washing faded blue overalls for their white comrades.
Many of the engineers and foremen had dressed up that morning, and a few
had fished out a white shirt. Judah and Strawbridge, of the Central, had
little chips of straw hats that had been harvested in the summer of '65.
Here and there you saw a sombrero, the wide hat of the cowboy, and the
big, soft, shapeless head cover of the Mormon, with a little bunch of
whiskers on his chin. General Dodge came from his arsenal car, that
stood on an improvised spur, in a bright, new uniform. Of the special
trains, that of Governor Stanford was first to arrive, with its
straight-stacked locomotive and Celestial servants. Then the U.P. engine
panted up, with its burnished bands and balloon stack, that reminded you
of the skirts the women wore, save that it funnelled down. When the
ladies began to jump down, the cayuses of the cowboys began to snort and
side-step, for they had seen nothing like these tents the women stood up
in.

Elaborate arrangements had been made for transmitting the news of the
celebration to the world. All the important telegraph offices of the
country were connected with Promontory, Utah, that day, so that the blow
of the hammer driving the last spike was communicated by the click of
the instrument to every office reached by the wires. From the Atlantic
to the Pacific the people were rejoicing and celebrating the event, but