rning
was clear, rosy, fresh. On the desert the colors changed from soft gray
to red and the whirls of dust, riding the wind, resembled little clouds
radiant with sunset hues. Silence and solitude and unbroken level
reigned outside in infinite contrast to the seething town. Benton
resembled an ant-heap at break of day. A thousand songs arose, crude and
coarse and loud, but full of joy. Pay-day and vacation were at hand!

"Then drill, my Paddies, drill!
Drill, my heroes, drill!
Drill all day,
No sugar in your tay,
Workin' on the U. P. Railway."

Casey was one Irish trooper of thousands who varied the song and tune
to suit his taste. The content alone they all held. Drill! They were
laborers who could turn into regiments at a word.

They shaved their stubby beards and donned their best--a bronzed,
sturdy, cheery army of wild boys. The curse rested but lightly upon
their broad shoulders.

Strangely enough, the morning began without the gusty wind so common to
that latitude, and the six inches of powdery white dust did not rise.
The wind, too, waited. The powers of heaven smiled in the clear, quiet
morning, but the powers of hell waited--for the hours to come, the night
and the darkness.

At nine o'clock a mob of five thousand men had congregated around the
station, most of them out in the open, on the desert side of the track.
They were waiting for the pay-train to arrive. This hour was the only
orderly one that Benton ever saw. There were laughter, profanity,
play--a continuous hum, but compared to Benton's usual turmoil, it was
pleasant. The workmen talked in groups, and, like all crowds of men
sober and unexcited, they were given largely to badinage and idle talk.

"Wot was ut I owed ye, Moike?" asked a strapping grader.

Mike scratched his head. "Wor it thorty dollars this toime?"

"It wor," replied the other. "Moike, yez hev a mimory."

A big Negro pushed out his huge jaw and blustered at his fellows.

"I's a-gwine to bust thet yaller nigger's haid," he declared.

"Bill, he's your fr'en'. Cool down, man, cool down," replied a comrade.

A teamster was writing a letter in lead-pencil, using a board over his
knees.

"Jim, you goin' to send money home?" queried a fellow-laborer.

"I am that, an' first thing when I get my pay," was the reply.

"Reminds me, I owe for this suit I'm wearin'. I'll drop in an' settle."

A group of spikers held forth on a little bank above the railroad