Читать книгу The Steam-Shovel Man онлайн

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"But I am not looking for a job on the gold roll," stubbornly returned Walter. "I am ready to pitch in with your laborers. Can't you take me on to help clear this mess?"

"For twenty cents an hour? You're joking," snapped the foreman. "White men don't do this kind of work down here."

Walter was for continuing the argument, but the other jumped to adjust the chains of a wrecking-crane. Just then there appeared a man of such a calm, unhurried manner that he seemed oddly out of place in this noisy, perspiring throng. As Walter brushed past him the placid stranger drawled:

"These tracks will be cleared by night. The job won't last long enough for you to make a start at it. Are you really looking for hard work at silver wages?"

"Please lead me to it," gratefully cried Walter. "I guess I can live on twenty cents an hour until something better turns up."

"Good for you," said the unruffled gentleman. "I am Mr. Naughton, in charge of the dynamite. We use eight hundred thousand pounds a month on the canal. I have a ship to unload, and the negroes have been panicky since the explosion this morning. Several of them quit me, and I guess they are running yet."