rs of poisons? Will
they ever hand your money back to you? Some of you men have dear ones
at home. If one of these dear ones sends a hurried, frenzied appeal for
money in time of sickness or death what will your answer have to be?
Just this: 'I have been working like a slave for a year, but I can send
you only my love. Jim Duff, who hasn't worked in all his life, won't let
me send you any money.' Friends, is that what you're burning yourselves
black on the desert for?"

While Tom Reade spoke Foreman Mendoza had marshaled his Mexicans and was
translating the young engineer's words into Spanish.

Nor was it long ere Tom's fine presentation of the matter caught the men
in the nobler part of their feelings.

"Don't blame Duff so much," Tom finally went on. "He may be a parasite,
a vulture, a feeder on blood, but you and men just like you have helped
to make the Duffs. You're not going to do so after this, are you, my
friends? You're not going to keep the breath of life in monsters who
drain you dry of life and manhood?"

"No!" came a thunderous shout, even though all of Reade's hearers did
not join in it.

Even the Mexicans, listening to Mendoza's translation, became
interested, despite their lesser degree of intelligence.

Tom continued to talk against time, though he wasted few words. All that
he said went home to many of the laborers. While he was still talking
the whistle of the pay train was heard.

Reade quickly sent his foremen and a few trusted workmen to head off any
"runners" who might attempt to come in from Paloma while the men were
being paid off.

As the train came to a stop Tom leaped upon a flat car behind the engine
and introduced one of the newcomers--the vice president of a savings
bank over in Tucson. This man, who knew the common people, talked for
fifteen minutes, after which a clerk appeared from the pay car with a
book in which to register the signatures of those who wished to open
bank accounts. Then the paymaster and his assistants worked rapidly in
paying off.

That railroad pay day proved a time of gloom to many in the town
of Paloma. The returning pay train carried the bank officials and
twenty-four thousand dollars that had been deposited as new accounts
from the men. Of the money that remained in camp much of it was carried
in the pockets of men who meant to keep it there until they received
something worth while it exchange.

True, this did not trouble the majority of people in P