Collis had spent five days arguing and wrangling with Durant and federal officials before both of them had grudgingly accepted Promontory Station as the point where the railroads should be linked. And at last, at eleven-thirty on this hot morning in May, the last few feet of roadbed were graded, and a polished laurel-wood tie was put down to carry the last rails.

The door of Collis’s parlour car was opened, and Leland stepped in, wearing a severe Sunday coat and a tall shiny black hat. He looked hot and agitated.

‘We’re ready at last,’ he said. ‘I’ve just had the most ridiculous argument with Grenville Dodge, about hammering in the last spike. He wanted to do it, of all people. A common-or-garden engineer. Where was he when we were lobbying for land grants, I wonder, and scratching around for funds?’

‘Have you finally settled it?’ asked Collis, in a flat, disinterested tone.

‘Well, yes, of course,’ puffed Leland. ‘I brought the ceremonial spikes, and I shall drive the first one in. Two golden spikes, a silver spike, and a spike made of iron, silver and gold, that’s what I brought. And the laurel-wood tie, with the silver plaque. All Dodge wanted to do was bang in any old iron spike, as if the last rail were any old rail.’

‘The last rail is no different from the first,’ said Collis. He looked up at Leland with a faint smile.

Leland fussily brushed at his lapels. ‘Half the trouble with you these days, Collis, is that you don’t seem to understand the importance of what we’ve achieved. We’ve spanned the continent! We’ve changed the life of this nation forever.’

‘Yes,’ said Collis, standing up. The band outside was playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ for the fifth time. ‘I suppose we’d better go. I wouldn’t want you to miss your ceremony.’

They stepped down from the train to the dusty roadbed. There was a crowd of six or seven hundred people gathered around now, and a good deal of laughing and jostling. Two or three whisky tents had been set up, and most of the spectators were drunk. Thomas Durant, waiting by the last gap in the rails in his finest black velvet jacket, looked extremely pale in the sunlight.