Dick made a motion as if he were pushing hard against a wall that was threatening to cave in upon him.
“Woof—not me!” he protested. “I might rattle away and tell ’em jokes and things of that sort, but gee!—somebody’s got to do more than that!—put the real old pep into ’em. I couldn’t do that any more than I could fly!”
“All right,” said Larry between his shut teeth. “It’s got to be done and I’ll try it. Here they come.”
The round-up part of it was a success at all events. Crowding into the open space before the tent came the men, two hundred and fifty strong, track-layers, tie-setters, bolters, teamsters, maul-men, carpenters, laborers. Larry, pale to the lips and with his knees knocking together, turned an empty spike keg bottom side up and stood on it. At the first go-off his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he merely made faces at the upturned sea of faces. Then, suddenly, he found his lost voice.
“I’m not going to make a speech to you men, because I don’t know how,” he exploded. “I—I just want to know if you fellows will stand with us if we try to keep this job going until the bosses get back? I’ve been thinking, and I’ve got a sort of plan——”
“Oot wi’ it, laddie!” shouted a giant Cornishman in the crowd. “If ye’ll be wantin’ us to tak’ a boonch o’ pickhan’les an’ go over an’ clean oop that gang on t’other side o’ the river, we’ll do it right hearty!”
“No, no; nothing like that,” Larry shouted back. “There’s a better way to do them up. They think they’ve got us stopped, so they can beat us into Little Ophir. Let’s show ’em they haven’t! Here’s what I was thinking: you men get together by your different trades—and elect your own foremen for the day. We—we’ll leave it to you to pick out the best men you can find. We—Dick Maxwell and I—can give you the blue-print stuff as you need it. What do you say, men? Is it a go?”
The shout that was raised might easily have been heard by the “enemy” army on the other side of the valley. Cries of “Bully for the lads!” “Chips off the old block!” “There’s the right stuff for ye!” “Burkett for our foreman!”—from the carpenters; “Tregarvon for ours!”—from the track-layers.
Larry waved his arms like a college yell leader.