28 BOOK OF A HUNDRED BEARS 



was like pressing your hand in a pan of dough: 

 on either side the dough is forced up. They felt 

 encouraged. They had made an impression. The 

 lake no longer smiled casually and cheerfully. 

 Day by day those sullen, sinister-looking islands 

 of gray primeval ooze and slime grew and length- 

 ened. Then one night the lake rose and tore 

 away the moored piles, anchored craft and pile- 

 drivers and scattered them to the last corner of 

 the lake. It took weeks to recover the scattered 

 material. Water for every purpose had to be 

 hauled a hundred miles. On the pile part piles 

 had to be spliced thrice to stand. The mud lay 

 in strata with floors of hard shale between. 



It was endless, heart-breaking work, yet it 

 proceeded rapidly and, at the end of two years, 

 it was finished. The fill was full; the piles com- 

 plete. Straight away, at a water level, for thirty- 

 four miles, stretched four steel ribands. The ends 

 were connected. It remained but to drive the 

 last spike, and the Great Salt Lake was con- 

 quered. They wired Harriman, shook hands with 

 each other, and went to bed. 



