"A good fighter, I should say." The tall boss scratched his beard with his finger-nails. "An encouraging thing to meet a good fighter in these fat days; but let us see." He stepped over to where a blue-and-red-spotted map of the State was hanging and laid a finger on a blue spot: "New Ireland, which we can safely call the enemy's banner town for its size in the United States. If Riley can leave his mark on that place it will be proof to me that he can make breaches all along the line."
"More likely, I think, that the place will leave its mark on him. More likely they will crack his skull, I think. He may love a fight; but New Ireland is full of men who love fighting too—and they are not with us."
"That's true—they are not." The boss drew his chin in to his neck again. "Too bad they are not. Suppose we wait, however, and see how Riley makes out. His reputation is that of a most resourceful man. And if he does make an impression on New Ireland he can have anything I can give him in this State."
II
It is a good place—a moving train—for serious meditation. Tim Riley allowed the landscape to fly by, the while he considered matters. He knew the temper of the kind of people with whom he was to battle. They were so many more like himself. As for trying to bulldoze or browbeat them, or—if he was that kind—to bribe a single one, though they were the hard-working, unsophisticated kind—whisht!—like the wind they'd go the other way. And as for scaring the tough ones, he might be the strongest and toughest and scrappiest and quickest lad on his feet that ever was, but out there in that quarrying town would be a dozen or twenty or fifty just as strong and as quick and as scrappy as himself. And that kind—which was his kind—you might set them up in a row and knock them down one after another, and just as fast as one went down another would come bouncing up for the honor of the last word.
New Ireland! Tim viewed a town of two or three hundred small, square-planned wooden houses, with one green-painted house larger than most, labelled Kearney's Hotel; another, larger than that again, with a square cupola, which he knew would be the town hall; and yet one more, largest of all, white-painted, with a surmounting gold cross, which, of course, could only be the chapel. A mile or so beyond the town, on the scarred hillsides, stuck up the derricks of the quarries, which were the town's reason for being. Beyond the quarries were foot-hills, which gradually grew up into mountains. It was autumn, and in that high land the few trees were already bare; before the high wind the bare branches swayed.
It was not the most encouraging day of the year. Tim, with a warm fire and a hot meal in view, hurried on to the little hotel. Peter Kearney was the landlord, a companionable soul, who did not see the need of a register, and who, after a time, produced a lunch; and who, further, while Tim ate, smoked and gossiped of things a travelling man would naturally be interested in.
"And what kind have you here in New Ireland? Easy to get along with?" asked Tim, after the discovery of the quarries, the settling of the town, and the last explosion had been intelligently discussed.
"To get along with? The finest, easiest ever—of course if a man don't cross them."
"I wonder do you think I'll cross them?"