“That is not unlikely.”
“They’re doing great work. Three miles of track laid yesterday; twelve so far this week. Averaging two and one-half miles a day and promising better.”
“So I understand,” I alleged.
“General Jack Casement is a world beater. If he could get the iron as fast as he could use it he’d build through to California without a halt. But looks now as if somewhere between would have to satisfy him. You are a surveyor, I take it?”
“Yes, I am surveying on the line along with the 90 others,” I answered. And surveying the country I was.
“You are the gentlemen who lay out the course,” he complimented. “Now, is there something else, sir?”
“I need a good revolver, a belt and ammunition.”
“We carry the reliable—the Colt’s. That’s the favorite holster gun in use out here. Please step across, sir.”
He led.
“If you’re not particular as to shine,” he resumed, “we have a second-hand outfit that I can sell you cheap. Took it in as a deposit, and the gentleman never has called for it. Of course you’re broken in to the country, but as you know a new belt and holster are apt to be viewed with suspicion and a gentleman sometimes has to draw when he’d rather not, to prove himself. This gun has been used just enough to take the roughness off the trigger pull, and it employs the metallic cartridges—very convenient. The furniture for it is O. K. And all at half price.”