Joshua Cole had fought his first great battle—and won.
CHAPTER XV
OUT WEST
A NEW railroad to be called the Gold Belt Cut-off was being built in California. At a little desert town named Spur trains arrived with almost weekly regularity which bore the outfits of contractors who were to do the work. These trains and others brought many tramp laborers from all parts of the United States, for tramps are inseparably connected with big construction in dirt and rock. Many people imagine that tramps never work at honest toil. These have never seen a big railroad in the building.
All was hustle and excitement at Spur this morning, for two long freight trains, carrying the immense outfit of the main contractors, Demarest, Spruce and Tillou, had just rolled in, and a hundred tramps were at the unloading. A temporary camp was pitched until the outfit was ready for its forty-mile trip by wagon to the mountains, where lay the heaviest work. The road was to cross the San Antonio Range at an altitude of approximately six thousand feet, and there the aged hills were being torn asunder.
Hundreds of horses and mules were led from the stock cars, and turned over to the stable boss and his helpers. The cooks were busy over several great ranges, set up temporarily in the open, and the air was filled with the odors of coffee and frying ham. Knocked-down wagons and grading implements were being thrown together. The walking boss rode about on his saddle horse, fat and prancing from its long confinement on the train, bawling orders to which no one paid attention. Bales of alfalfa hay by the ton were being opened, and mules brayed and horses whinnied.
To the stable boss came Joshua Cole, grave-eyed and slim. Joshua had just left a freight train that had come to rest at Spur, and the train crew had let him ride for a hundred miles because he was headed for this scene of intense activity.
To the stable boss he said:
“Got a job?”
“Sure—a hundred of ’em. Don’t bother me! You a skinner?”
“Yes,” said Joshua. “But I’m a hammerman, too, and I prefer to work in rock.”