Wakefield looked sceptical; he had heard that sort of talk before.
"Do you like railroad work?" he asked.
"Not so well's this. I like my own job better, only 'taint so stayin'. Might 've had another month's work, on the road to the cañon over there; but that would ha' ben the end on 't. So I'm goin' to throw up that job this afternoon."
"What's wanted on the cañon road?"
"Wal, it wants widenin', an' it wants bracin' up here 'n there, 'n there's a power of big stuns to be weeded out. A reel purty job it's goin' to be, too, in there by the runnin' water, among the fars 'n the birds 'n the squirrels."
"I suppose you could hardly have managed that all by yourself?"
"Oh, yes! It's an easy job."
"And you think you could have done it with just your two hands and a shovel and a crowbar?"
"Wal, yes,—'n a pinch o' powder now and then, 'n somethin' to drill a hole with,—an' a little nat'ral gumption."
Wakefield liked the sound of it all uncommonly well. For a man who had come to a rough place in his own road,—a jumping-off place he had once thought it might prove to be,—would it not be rather a pleasant thing, to smooth off a road for the general public? It would be a stroke in the game, at least, and that was his main concern just now. Such a good, downright, genuine sort of work too! He had an idea that if he could once get his grip on a crowbar, and feel a big rock come off its bottom at his instigation, he should have a stirring of self-respect. After all, of all that he had lost, that was perhaps the most important thing to get back.