“So it’s fur out into the desert yez have been, is it?” asked Pat, at lay-off the first evening.
“That’s what, Pat.”
“An’ nigh died, one o’ yez. Well, well! Is that the kind o’country? But no matter. Yez didn’t see anything o’ the Cintral, did yez?”
“We should say not! They’re still in California, more than a thousand miles west.”
“Sure, what’s a thousand miles, to a U. Pay. man? First thing they know, we’ll be bumpin’ their Chiny dagoes off’n the right o’ way. Is it true they got 10,000 of ’em a-workin’ wid white man’s picks an’ shovels?”
“Shouldn’t wonder, Pat.”
Pat sighed.
“Ah, well. Nobody but an Irishman can handle a pick—yes, an’ a shillaly, too. Wid them two weapons we’ll dig to Chiny itself. We’ve had a hard time wid the Injuns, since you left, Terry, me boy; but now we’re hittin’ our stride ag’in an’ we’ll not stop till we’re atop them Black Hills yonder, where we can take a squint over at the country beyant.”
The rails went forward, but Terry had found himself promoted from rail-hauler on the back of old yellow Jenny (and he did hate to leave Jenny) to time-checker on the back of a horse: his business to ride along among the work-gangs and get their time, for report to the Casement pay-master.
And George was settled as a clerk in the pay-car that weekly trundled up and back.