In that walk of five blocks he saw thousands of persons, but they were not the soldiers who protected the line, nor the laborers who made the road. These were the travelers, the business people, the stragglers, the nondescripts, the parasites, the criminals, the desperadoes, and the idlers—all who must by hook or crook live off the builders.
Neale was conscious of a sudden exhilaration. The spirit was still in him. After all, his defeated ambition counted for nothing in the great sum of this work. How many had failed! He thought of the nameless graves already dotting the slopes along the line and already forgotten. It would be something to live through the heyday of Benton.
Under a sign, “Hotel,” he entered a door in a clapboard house. The place was as crude as an unfinished barn. Paying in advance for lodgings, he went to the room shown him—a stall with a door and a bar, a cot and a bench, a bowl and a pitcher. Through cracks he could see out over an uneven stretch of tents and houses. Toward the edge of town stood a long string of small tents and several huge ones, which might have been the soldiers’ quarters.
Neale went out in search of a meal and entered the first restaurant. It was merely a canvas house stretched over poles, with compartments at the back. High wooden benches served as tables, low benches as seats. The floor was sand. At one table sat a Mexican, an Irishman, and a Negro. The Irishman was drunk. The Negro came to wait on Neale, and, receiving an order, went to the kitchen. The Irishman sidled over to Neale.
“Say, did yez hear about Casey?” he inquired, in very friendly fashion.
“No, I didn’t,” replied Neale. He remembered Casey, the flagman, but probably there were many Caseys in that camp.
“There wus a foight, out on the line, yisteddy,” went on the fellow, “an’ the dom’ redskins chased the gang to the troop-train. Phwat do you think? A bullet knocked Casey’s pipe out of his mouth, as he wus runnin’, an’ b’gorra, Casey sthopped fer it an’ wus all shot up.”
“Is he dead?” inquired Neale.
“Not yit. No bullets can’t kill Casey.”
“Was his pipe a short, black one?”