Then some attempt was made to clean the remainder of the room; the tables and cots were put in place, the range installed, the cook put to work arranging his pantry, and the place was ready for its occupants. These, as has been said, arrived on the evening train, and were at once marched over to the place which was to be their home for an indefinite length of time.
Under the glare of the gas lights overhead, the place presented a somewhat more attractive appearance than it did by day, and the bountiful supper which was soon provided did its share toward putting the newcomers in good humour with themselves and their surroundings. The odour of cooking had served to mitigate the odour of the freight-house, and a cloud of tobacco smoke soon wiped it out altogether. The strike-breakers, under the softening influence of all this, began to look around at each other and to take the first steps toward getting acquainted.
For they were strangers to each other; they had been gathered together hastily from many different sources, and were as diverse in appearance and, no doubt, in character, as forty-eight men could be. None of them, it was evident at once, would rank very high in the social scale. Most of them were plainly failures, and a glance at their rubicund and mottled faces revealed what the principal cause of failure had been.
“But then,” as Mr. Schofield was remarking to Mr. Plumfield and Allan West, in his office across the yards, at that very moment, “we can keep drink away from them for a time, or, at least, give them just enough to keep them from losing their nerve. It will be easy enough for the first two or three days, but after that we’ll have to look out. The drink hunger will get some of them sure, and they’ll break away; but most of them will stay, because we won’t give them any money till payday, and they’re all broke. Those who want to go, we’ll have to let go, of course, for we can’t hold them prisoners—though we’ll be accused of doing it, no matter what happens. Now what I want to say is this—we need a man we can trust to make his headquarters in that freight-house and to keep his eye out for trouble. And, Allan, I’m going to give you charge of the situation here. Mr. Plumfield and myself will have to be looking after matters at other points on the line—I’m going to Cincinnati to-morrow and George will go to Parkersburg. I don’t believe there’s as much chance of trouble here as there is at Cincinnati, where a mob of thugs and toughs can be collected in no time; or at a river town like Parkersburg, where there are always a lot of roust-abouts looking for trouble.”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Plumfield, slowly. “There are more railroad men here than at any other point on the division, since this is division headquarters. And the entire police force consists of about a dozen men.”
“I know that,” replied the superintendent; “but there’s mighty few of the railroad men who will give us any trouble; even if they did want to, in a small town like this everybody knows them, and a man doesn’t begin to riot and destroy property where he’s generally known—he’s too likely to be caught and punished. Anyway, Allan must take the job.”
“All right, sir,” said Allan. “I’ll do my best.”
“And now who’s the right man to put over there in the freight-house?”
“Reddy Magraw,” answered Allan, promptly. “He’s true blue and as sharp as a steel trap.”
Mr. Schofield nodded his approval.