Page:Ralph Paine--The Steam-Shovel Man.djvu/60

 brick-red American with a fighting jaw who was driving the wrecking-crews at top speed.

"I am not the superintendent," was the impatient reply, "but I'll save you the trouble of looking him up. He is taking no more men on the gold roll. The railroad has been laying people off."

"But I am not looking for a job on the gold roll," stubbornly returned Walter. "I am ready to pitch in with your laborers. Can't you take me on to help clear this mess?"

"For twenty cents an hour? You're joking," snapped the foreman. "White men don't do this kind of work down here."

Walter was for continuing the argument, but the other jumped to adjust the chains of a wrecking-crane. Just then there appeared a man of such a calm, unhurried manner that he seemed oddly out of place in this noisy, perspiring throng. As Walter brushed past him the placid stranger drawled:

"These tracks will be cleared by night. The job won't last long enough for you to make a start at it. Are you really looking for hard work at silver wages?"