th them? What do you mean by the ornery ones?
They're all here because they want to work, aren't they? If they get
dissatisfied they quit, don't they?"

Truxton looked at him curiously. "You got a lot of things to learn,
Conniston. Just you take a tip from me: You keep your eyes an' ears
real wide open for the next few days an' your mouth shut as long as
you can. Tommy explained to you about the opposition? About what
Oliver Swinnerton is doin' an' tryin' to do?"

"Yes."

"Then you remember that; don't overlook it for a minute, wakin' or
sleepin'. It'll explain a whole lot."

When they rode into the camp at Little Rome the two hundred men
employed there were just beginning to stir. Conniston's eyes took in
with no little interest the details of the camp. There was one long,
low tent, the canvas sides rolled up so that he could see a big
cooking-stove with two or three men working over it. This, plainly
enough, was the kitchen. From each side of the door a long line of
twelve-inch boards laid across saw-horses ran out across the level
sand. Upon the parallel boards were tin plates stacked high in piles,
tin cups, knives and forks, and scores of loaves of bread. There were
in addition perhaps twenty tin buckets half filled with sugar.

Scattered here and there upon the sand, some not twenty feet from the
tent, some a hundred yards, some few with a little straw under them,
the most of them with their blankets thrown upon the sand or upon
heaps of cut sage-brush, were Truxton's "muckers." They lay there like
a bivouacking army, their bodies disposed loosely, some upon their
backs, still sleeping heavily; many just sitting up, awakened by the
clatter of the cook's big iron spoon against a tin pan.

Behind the tent, picketed in rows by short ropes, were the horses and
mules. And lined up to the right of the tent were twenty big,
long-bodied Studebaker wagons, each with four barrels of water. Two
more wagons at the other side of the tent were piled high with boxes
and bags of provisions.

Truxton and Conniston unsaddled swiftly, and after staking out their
horses, Conniston throwing his roll of bedding down behind the tent,
they walked around to the front. Already most of the men were up,
rolling blankets or hurrying to the rude tables. Several of them had
gone to the aid of the cooks, and now were hurrying up and down
between the parallel boards, setting out immense black pots of coffee,
great lumps of butter, big pa