Finally, my gratitude, as always, must go to my wife, Barbara; my daughter, Jessica; and my son, Reid, for their unflagging support.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:
Cover art by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative.
Group of workmen on the Union Pacific Railroad, North Wind Picture Archives.
Railroad building on the Great Plains, Library of Congress.
Thomas Clark Durant, Union Pacific Railroad Museum.
Theodore Judah, ibid.
General Jack Casement with work train, ibid.
Dormitory cars, Great Northern Railway Historical Society Archives.
Graders’ camp, Union Pacific Railroad Museum.
Dale Creek Bridge, The American West in the Nineteenth Century, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York.
Benton, Wyoming, Union Pacific Railroad Museum.
Confrontation between Plains Indians and railroad workers, The American West in the Nineteenth Century, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York.
Train surrounded by buffalo, Ready-to-Use Old West Cuts, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York.
Snowbound train, North Wind Picture Archives.
Explosion near railroad workers, The American West in the Nineteenth Century, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York.
The No. 1 General Sherman engine, Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
The Last Spike, gold alloyed with copper, William T. Garrett Foundry, San Francisco, 1869, gift of David Hewes to Stanford University, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts.
The joining of the rails, Union Pacific Railroad Museum.
Broadsheet, ibid.
Maps by Heather Saunders.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Sean Sullivan is a fictional character, created by the author, and his journal and its epilogue are works of fiction.
Copyright © 1999 by William Durbin
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
eISBN 978-0-545-57664-2
This edition first printing, September 2013
The display type was set in Wells Grotesque Medium.
Cover design by Steve Scott
This edition photo research by Amla Sanghvi
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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