The Wreckers

ectors'

st I took a little sashay down Nevada Avenue to have a look at our railroad. Of course, I knew, after what the boss had sai

ew was making up a freight, and the way they slammed the boxes together, regardless of broken drawheads and the like, was a sin and a shame. Then I saw some grain cars with the ends start

r to go to work. Down at the round-house, a wiper was spotting a big freight-puller on the turn-table, and I'm blessed if he didn't actual

building, down-stairs and up. A few clerks were dribbling in, and none of them seemed to have life enough to get out of the way of an ox

ar-just on general principles. He took

just make it a case of 'move on, Joey,' and don't s

ot?" I

e out here. The P. S. L. isn't a railroad, at all; it's just making a bluff at being one. Besides, we

I might get a job with the

w York are all here now, and maybe they'll pick somebody before they go away.

our job?"

wouldn't think it to look at me, but I'm hea

han you are giving him," I offered; and at that he spat on the platform

usin or nephew or brother-in-law or something. They shoot 'em out here from New York in bunches. You may be a spotter, for

I couldn'

here many more like you in th

ere at headquarters who would go on a bat and paint this town a bright vermilion if the new G

I told him, fishing out a pencil and

, Frederic G. May. And when you want my head, you can find it just exactly where I to

y about his road and his own boss? I couldn't help seeing how rotten th

urg, with a cut-stone post-office and a new court house built out of pink lava, and three or four office buildings big enough to be called sky-scrapers anywhere outside of a real city like Portland or Seattle.

sat down in a corner to wear out some more time. Though it was now after nine o'clock, there were still a

pockets for cigars. Right on the dot, and in the face of knowing that it couldn't reasonably be so, I had a feeling that I'd seen those men before. One of them was short and rather stocky, and his face had

hairs away from me. They paid no attention to me, but for fear they mi

low, rasping voice that went through you like a buzz-saw, and it was evident that he was merely going on with a talk which had

lowly and with something more than a hint of a German acce

who had sat in the auto at Sand Creek Siding and smoked while they were waiting for the ac

e the big ma

Chadwick up his sleev

ivership-which will knock us into a cocked hat because we can't fool with an

that will come out of that

up a lot of side deals that wouldn't look well for the New York crowd if they got into the newspapers, the securities would be knocke

will

r of the railroad outfit. We might have stood it off for a while, just as I

t could stand it

n. He'll be only human, Henckel. And if we get right down to it we c

shes off of his bay-window. "You vait and see what com

, he'd catch on to the fact that I might have overheard. But apart from giving me one long stare that made my blood run cold, he didn't seem to not

en sitting in my corner for two full hours, when I saw the boss coming down the broad marble

eet of paper; a Pioneer Short Line president's letter-head with a few line

n it's a rush job and we want it to-day. Then make a copy and take it to Mr. Cantrell, the editor, and ask him to run i

t as I hurried out to begin a hunt for the Mountaineer office. It was the printer's copy for an official ci

Manager of the Pioneer Short Line System, with headquarters

nridge

side

rt out of the question, I grinned and told myself that the one other thin