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 "Here's my shanty; where's yours?" he asked.

"Haven't got any!"

"I'd ask you in if we wasn't packin' up to go."

"Does your wife go with you?"

"Why, nat'rally!"

"Say," Wakefield queried, as the man turned in at the gate. "How did you go to work to get that job up in the cañon?"

"Went to 'Bijah Lang, the street-commissioner."

"You haven't got any friend who would like you to pass the job over to him?"

"No."

"Think I could do it?"

"Wal, yes,—if you've got the gumption! Your arms and legs 'pear to be all right! Ever see any work of the kind?"

"Yes; I used to watch them on the road up Bear Mountain, at Lame Gulch."

"Know how to drill a hole in a rock?"

"Learned that when I was a boy."

"Know the difference between joint powder and the black stuff?"

"Yes; though I never handled giant powder myself."

"Wal, don't be too free with it, that's all.