"No," said Lister, smiling. "I'm going to look about. I know our new Western towns, but I want to see old cities, churches, and cathedrals; the great jobs men made before they used concrete and steel. Then I'd like to study art and music and see the people my father talked about. Ours is a good country, but when it's all you know it gets monotonous." He indicated the row of wooden houses and lonely plain. "One wants more than the track and this."
"It's possible you may go across," said Kemp. "Looks as if the company's short list was pretty long. There's a gang of candidates in town, we have no pull on the directors, and I don't know if our advantages are very marked—" He stopped and laughed, for a man came round the corner. "Hello, Willis!" he exclaimed. "When did you arrive?"
"I came in on the last train. Got a notice to meet the Irrigation Board."
"Oh, well," said Kemp, "since the applicants are more numerous than the posts, I reckon another won't count. Do you expect they're going to take you on?"
"I expect my chance is as good as yours."
"I'll sell you my chance for ten dollars," Kemp rejoined.
"Nothing doing, at the price," said Willis, and went off.
Kemp laughed. Willis was marked by a superficial smartness his comrades sometimes found amusing and sometimes annoying. For the most part, they bore with him good-humoredly, but did not trust him when work that needed careful thought was done.
"The kid looks confident, but his applying for a job is something of a joke," Kemp remarked. "I'd put his value at fifty cents a day."
Lister agreed, and looked up the dusty street. The fronts of the small frame houses were cracked by the sun, and some were carried up to hide the roof and give the building a fictitious height. A Clover-leaf wagon stood in front of a store, the wheels crusted by dry mud, and the team fidgeted amidst a swarm of flies. Except for one or two railroad hands waiting by the caboose of a freight train, nobody was about. The town looked strangely dreary.