k to work--unless
there is some way that we can stop the fleecing."

"There isn't any such way," declared Superintendent Hawkins, with an air
of conviction.

"You've surely been around rough railroading camps enough to know that,
Mr. Reade."

"I've seen a good deal of the life, Hawkins," Tom answered, "but of
course I don't know it all."

"Yet you know that you can't hope to stop railroad jacks from spending
their money in their own way. The saloons in Paloma will take in
thousands of dollars from our lads to-night and all day to-morrow. The
gamblers will swindle them out of a whole lot more. Day after to-morrow,
Mr. Reade, you wouldn't be able to borrow twenty dollars from our whole
force."

"It's a shame," burst from Tom indignantly, as the three turned to gaze
westward across the desert. "These men work as hard as any toilers in
the world. They receive good wages. Yet where do you find a railroad
jack who, after years and years of toil on these burning deserts, has
two or three hundred dollars of his own saved?"

Hawkins shrugged his shoulders.

"I know all about it," he responded, "and I grow angry every time I
think about it. Yet how is one going to protect these, men against
themselves?"

"I believe there's a way," spoke Tom confidently.

"I hope you can find it, then, Mr. Reade," retorted Hawkins skeptically.

"At any rate, I'm going to try."

"What are you going to do, Mr. Reade?" demanded the superintendent
curiously.

"You'll be with me, won't you?" coaxed Tom.

"You'll stand with us, shoulder to shoulder."

"I certainly will, Mr. Reade!"

"And the foremen? You can depend upon them?"

"On every one of them," declared Hawkins promptly. "Even to the Mexican
foreman, Mendoza. He's a greaser, but he's a brick, and a white man all
the way through!"

"Call the foremen in, then--all except Payson, who is with his gang."

Tom and Harry stepped inside the office. Mr. Hawkins strolled away, but
within ten minutes he was back again, followed by Foremen Bell, Rivers
and Mendoza.

"Two wagons have driven up, east of here," announced Mr. Hawkins, as he
entered the office building. "They've stopped a quarter of a mile below
here and have dumped two tents. I think they're about to raise them."

Tom stepped hastily outside, glancing eastward, where they saw what the
superintendent had described. One of the tents had just been raised,
though the pitching of it had not yet been thoroughly done.

"Wha