Craigellachie: November 7, 1885

It was a cold November morning. One of those days where the sun never really rises, and the world sits in that uneasy place somewhere between night and day. Donald Smith had not slept well. The road to Craigellachie had been a long and tumultuous one. Not as long as had been accounted for, mind you. In fact the railway had been completed in a mere five years, only half of what Prime Minister Macdonald had said it would take. Yet still, on this day of days, Donald Smith wanted anything but to be driving the final spike into the ground. He felt the need to remind himself again: The railway had to be built. Whatever the means. Whatever the losses. It had to be built, and it had been. That must be good enough.