DENVER AND BEYOND 27 



over unknown depths and upon an unknown 

 foundation. No one knew what was at the bot- 

 tom of the lake — rock, sand, or mud. 



To make an air line the road runs across an arm 

 of the lake, into which flows Bear River, a big, 

 fresh-water stream, to Promontory Point. This 

 was to be a fill; the rest of the way was to be piled. 



So an army of men was set to work — literally 

 an army, larger than that which Washington com- 

 manded at Yorktown. Forests were felled for 

 piles and ties. The great steel mills roared and 

 flared night and day for months. A fleet of 

 barges, tug boats, launches and steamers plied the 

 once deserted waters. Gnomes attacked a moun- 

 tain range, and with pick and drill, and engine and 

 gin and dynamite bit and tore and hammered and 

 worried it down into the lake depths. And, day 

 by day, the lake swallowed it up — casually, easily, 

 with the same smiling, dancing, rippling face. 

 Tons, thousands of tons, of rock disappeared with- 

 out a sign, till there came a day when islands 

 began to appear along the fill. The bottom was a 

 spongy mud and, when the rock began to sink, it 



