Omaha had no railroad entering it from the
east, and so all the supplies, materials, engines, cars, machinery,
and laborers had to be transported from St. Louis up the swift
Missouri on boats. This in itself was a work calling for the limit
of practical management and energy. Out on the prairie-land, for
hundreds of miles, were to be found no trees, no wood, scarcely any
brush. The prairie-land was beautiful ground for buffalo, but it was
a most barren desert for the exigencies of railroad men. Moreover,
not only did wood and fuel and railroad-ties have to be brought from
afar, but also stone for bridges and abutments. Then thousands of
men had to be employed, and those who hired out for reasonable money
soon learned that others were getting more; having the company at
their mercy, they demanded exorbitant wages in their turn.
One of the peculiar features of the construction, a feature over
which Neale grew impotently furious, was the law that when a certain
section of so many miles had been laid and equipped the Government
of the United States would send out expert commissioners, who would
go over the line and pass judgment upon the finished work. No two
groups of commissioners seemed to agree. These experts, who had
their part to play in the bewildering and labyrinthine maze of men's
contrary plans and plots, reported that certain sections would have
to be done over again.
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