lin' me with askin'
those urgent questions of yourn--why, I had to let yu' go your way! Why,
that wasn't the ordinary play with the ordinary tenderfoot they treated
you to! You ain't a common tenderfoot this trip. You're the foreman's
friend. They've hit him through you. That's the way they count it. It's
made them encouraged. Can't yu' see?"

Scipio stated it plainly. And as we ran by the next station, "Howard!"
they harshly yelled. "Portland 1256!"

We had been passing gangs of workmen on the track. And at that last yell
the Virginian rose. "I reckon I'll join the meeting again," he said.
"This filling and repairing looks like the washout might have been
true."

"Washout?" said Scipio.

"Big Horn bridge, they say--four days ago."

"Then I wish it came this side Rawhide station."

"Do yu'?" drawled the Virginian. And smiling at Scipio, he lounged in
through the open door.

"He beats me," said Scipio, shaking his head. "His trail is turruble
hard to anticipate."

We listened.

"Work bein' done on the road, I see," the Virginian was saying, very
friendly and conversational.

"We see it too," said the voice of Trampas.

"Seem to be easin' their grades some."

"Roads do."

"Cheaper to build 'em the way they want 'em at the start, a man would
think," suggested the Virginian, most friendly. "There go some more
I-talians."

"They're Chinese," said Trampas.

"That's so," acknowledged the Virginian, with a laugh.

"What's he monkeyin' at now?" muttered Scipio.

"Without cheap foreigners they couldn't afford all this hyeh new
gradin'," the Southerner continued.

"Grading! Can't you tell when a flood's been eating the banks?"

"Why, yes," said the Virginian, sweet as honey. "But 'ain't yu' heard
of the improvements west of Big Timber, all the way to Missoula, this
season? I'm talkin' about them."

"Oh! Talking about them. Yes, I've heard."

"Good money-savin' scheme, ain't it?" said the Virginian. "Lettin' a
freight run down one hill an' up the next as far as she'll go without
steam, an' shavin' the hill down to that point." Now this was an honest
engineering fact. "Better'n settin' dudes squintin' through telescopes
and cypherin' over one per cent reductions," the Southerner commented.

"It's common sense," assented Trampas. "Have you heard the new scheme
about the water-tanks?"

"I ain't right certain," said the Southerner.

"I must watch this," said Scipio, "or I shall bust." He went in, and so