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On the roof of the building opposite the hotel a mass of telephone wires, each with its little drift piled up as if the air had been rendered motionless, was being scrutinized by a lineman on whose legs were spurs for climbing poles. The man appeared to be quite anxious. Jimmy's spirits rose bouyantly, finding in each view some hopeful sign.
Every rod of road surveyed made the engineers sterner at their task, just as it made them keener to attain final success. The climb to the top of the bluff was long and arduous. The whole corps went, and also some of the troopers. "I'll need a long rope," Neale had said to King, his lineman. It was this order that made King take so much time in ascending the bluff.
Sarah F. Brown, widow, working class family; James R. Williams, machinist's helper, member of union; Mrs. Sarah J. Timmer, wife of a union lineman, and T. J. Byrne, contractor.
"Wal, I reckon this heah time I'll go down before you," drawled King. Neale laughed and looked curiously at his lineman. Back somewhere in Nebraska this cowboy from Texas had attached himself to Neale. They worked together; they had become friends. Larry Red King made no bones of the fact that Texas had grown too hot for him. He had been born with an itch to shoot.
He worked at this a year or two, and finally became a full-fledged lineman. He did well as a lineman and after a year or so attracted the attention of an electric light and power company, who enticed him away from the telephone company and gave him charge of poles and wires in a residential district.
Men were running everywhere in and out of the building and the waiting-room was barricaded for war. Bill Dancing caught a passing trainman by the arm. "What's going on here?" The man looked at the lineman and his companion in surprise: "The gamblers are driving the vigilantes, Bill. They've got all Front Street. What's the matter with you?"
The lineman snorted and the operator saw that his appeal had fallen flat. "My batteries, Bill," he added, changing the subject, "are no good at all. I sent for you because I want you to go over them now, to-night, and start me right. What are you going to do?" Dancing had begun to poke at the ashes in the stove. "Build a fire," he returned, looking about for material.
Being joined here by a lineman, who had charge of half a dozen natives and a waggon, we loaded our luggage on the latter, as well as a sack or two of meal the only foodstuff we could obtain, and began work, each armed with a spanner and a couple of iron tent-pegs.
Dancing caught sight of Bob Scott coming down the rear stairway with an armful of rifles, and, without answering the question, called to him. "Hello!" exclaimed Scott halting. He started as he saw Bucks. "Were you with him? And I've been scouring the town for you! Stanley will have a word to say to you, youngster. They thought the gamblers had you, Bill," he added, turning to the lineman.
"Suppose," continued Stanley, still regarding the offending settlement, "you and Dancing reconnoitre them a little and tell me who they are. We will wait for you." Scott and the lineman swung into their saddles and started down the trail that led to the landing. Stanley spoke again to the foreman.
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