“We'll run him off the desert, or bury him there!” came the snarling response.
“I can't believe that boy, Reade, will ever succeed in laying the railroad tracks across the Man-killer,” smiled Jim Duff darkly within himself.
CHAPTER IV. SOMEBODY STIRS THE MUD
The next morning only a few of the men, some of those who had refused to open bank accounts, failed to show up at the railroad camp.
“There is really nothing to do this morning,” Tom remarked to Superintendent Hawkins. “However, I think you had better dock the missing men for time off. If you find that any missing man has been gone on a proper errand of rest or enjoyment, and has not been making a beast of himself, you can restore his docked pay on the lists.”
“That's a very good idea,” nodded Hawkins. “It always angers me to see these poor, hardworking fellows go away and make fools of themselves just as soon as they get a bit of pay in their pockets. Still, you can't change the whole face of human nature, Mr. Reade.”
“I don't expect to do so,” smiled Tom. “Yet, if we can get a hundred or two in this outfit to take a sensible view of pay day, and can drill it into them so that it will stick, there will be just that number of happier men in the world. How long have you been in this work on the frontier, Mr. Hawkins?”
“About twenty years, sir.”
“Then it must have angered you, many a time, to see the vultures and the parasites fattening on the men who do the real work in life.”