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Prudently estimating the sparseness of his fortune to execute a hundred miles of embankment and railroad, Milburn yet kept up a display of surveyors and graders in several counties, and his local patriotism had at least the appreciation of Vesta's little circle.
Graders, tie-men, track-layers and construction corps, were already on the spot, and they too seemed imbued with the same spirit of enthusiasm which filled their more wealthy and ambitious neighbors in the city. As may readily be imagined, crime and immorality followed hand in hand with the march of improvement.
"Some country boys got in a muss with a side-show barker and they got to fighting, and some Irish railroad graders heard the row, and they rushed in with spades and picks' and clubs, and some gentleman said, 'Hey, Rheube, and the circus men came rushing out, and I came up with a tin star, and said, 'In the name of the state I command the peace, and I grabbed a circus man by the arm, and an Irishman named Gibbons said, 'to hell wid 'em, and then a box car or something struck me on the head, and I laid down, and three hundred circus men and about the same number of countrymen and railroad hands walked on me, and they fought for an hour, and when the people got me home and I woke up the circus had been gone a week, and they had buried those who died, and a whole lot were in jail, and my head didn't get down so I could get my hat on before late in the fall."
This was counted only when the person of an enemy was actually touched. One or two incidents which have occurred among the Pawnees will serve to illustrate their notions on this point. In the year 1867, the Pawnee scouts had been sent up to Ogallalla, Nebraska, to guard the graders who were working on the Union Pacific railroad.
I want you to ride out after those graders." "All right," replied Neale, rapidly. "Have you told Do the women know yet what's up?" "Yes. And that girl of yours has nerve. Hurry, Neale." Neale rode away on his urgent errand without having seen Allie. His orders had been to run the horse. It was some distance to the next grading camp how far he did not know.
In a scanty widening of the main canyon a few hundred yards below the station a graders' camp of rude slab shelters is turning out its horde of wild-looking Italians; and on a crooked spur track fronting the shanties blue wood-smoke is curling lazily upward from the kitchen car of a construction train.
Not for many a week had he heard anything favorable to the great U. P. project, and here was news of rails laid, trains run. Already this spring the graders were breaking ground far ahead of the rail-layers. Report and rumor at the fort had it that lively times had attended the construction.
He rode at a gallop through a wagontrain camp, which, from its quiet looks, was not connected with the work on the railroad, straight on into the midst of two hundred or more graders just about to begin the day's work. His advent called a halt to everything. Sharply and briefly Neale communicated the orders given him. Then he wheeled his horse for the return trip.
Beyond the glare and glitter of the Metropolitan Dance Hall the noisy crowd thinned away somewhat, and the marshal ventured to drop back beside Fairbain, yet vigilantly watched every approaching face. "Town appears unusually lively to-night, Bill," observed the latter gravely, "and the boys have got an early start." "West end graders just paid off," was the reply.
The telegraph wire hummed dismally. We were plowing along against the wind when we heard a shout and looked up. Over by the old graders' camp there were three men on horseback, all bundled up in fur coats. One of them had a letter in his hand which he waved at us. "Let's see what's up," I said to Andrew, and we started over.
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