“How?”
“Put a stick of dynamite in the crankshaft.”
“Where do you go with this train of rum?”
“We go right up the mountains with it, till we reach the jumping-off place.”
“Do you never have trouble?”
“We have had a certain amount of trouble. There was trouble on the Mesa Line one time. But trouble, hell. You lie still and get your strength.”
“Heya, you, Doug!”
“Heya yourself.”
As the train jolted up towards the mines, along the bank of the river, a man came catlike towards them, from truck to truck, from the direction of the engine. He hung on somehow by his eyelids, and jangled as he came with hook-pots of hot cazuela slung round his neck. From time to time jolts of the truck spilt the hot broth on to his knees. When this happened, he cursed in Spanish. He it was who called Douglas from his talk.
“Cazuela,” he said. “Catch a hold. And here’s a hook-pot for the other fella.”