little,
tossed back his head, opened an unusual mouth, drained the cup at a
gulp, and cursing the freightman fraternally, exclaimed, "How many
cars have you ditched this time?"

The trainman, a sober-faced fellow, answered dryly, "All I had."

"Running too fast, eh?" glared Sinclair.

With the box cars piled forty feet high on the track, the conductor
was too old a hand to begin a controversy. "Our time's fast," was all
he said.

Sinclair rose and exclaimed, "Come on!" And the two, leaving the car,
started up the track. The wrecking boss paid no attention to his
companion as they forged ahead, but where the train had hit the curve
he scanned the track as he would a blue print. "They'll have your
scalp for this," he declared abruptly.

"I reckon they will."

"What's your name?"

"Stevens."

"Looks like all day for you, doesn't it? No matter; I guess I can help
you out."

Where the merchandise cars lay, below the switch, the train crew knew
that a tramp had been caught. At intervals they heard groans under the
wreckage, which was piled high there. Sinclair stopped at the derrick,
and the freight conductor went on to where his brakeman had enlisted
two of Sinclair's giants to help get out the tramp. A brake beam had
crushed the man's legs, and the pallor of his face showed that he was
hurt internally, but he was conscious and moaned softly. The men had
started to carry him to the way car when Sinclair came up, asked what
they were doing, and ordered them back to the wreck. They hastily laid
the tramp down. "But he wants water," protested a brakeman who was
walking behind, carrying his arm in a sling.

"Water!" bawled Sinclair. "Have my men got nothing to do but carry a
tramp to water? Get ahead there and help unload those refrigerators.
He'll find water fast enough. Let the damned hobo crawl down to the
creek after it."

The tramp was too far gone for resentment; he had fainted when they
laid him down, and his half-glazed eyes, staring at the sky, gave no
evidence that he heard anything.

The sun rose hot, for in the Red Desert sky there is rarely a cloud.
Sinclair took the little hill nearest the switch to bellow his orders
from, running down among the men whenever necessary to help carry them
out. Within thirty minutes, though apparently no impression had been
made on the great heaps of wrenched and splintered equipment, Sinclair
had the job in hand.

Work such as this was the man's genius. In handling