h
was practically unnecessary. Such, indeed, was the rapidity with which
the rails were laid that camp had to be moved from two to three miles
westward every day, so that the men never knew what it was to sleep
twice in the same place.

As Joe was about to scoop up another load, a gunshot echoed and
re-echoed across the prairie. "Dinner time; just what we have been
waiting for!" shouted Joe, as he let go the handles of the scraper,
unhitched the mules, sprang on the back of one of them, and stooping,
swung Harry Langdon, his delicate-looking driver, laughingly across
the back of the other. The next moment they were dashing towards the
camp half a mile away. Other laborers, similarly mounted, were
straining every muscle to reach the same place, for they knew that the
rule of "first come, first served," would be religiously adhered to.

A fast friendship had sprung up between the huge scraper-handler and
his young driver. The very day the little fellow had wandered into
camp, two months before, with his hands and face swollen with mosquito
bites, and asked for a job, big-hearted Joe took a liking to him. It
was owing to Joe's influence with the foremen that he was at last,
grudgingly, given work, as his slim, girlish figure told strongly
against him among such a crowd of sinewy, hardy men.

Had he been put driving for any other scraper-handler than Joe he
would never have succeeded; for before he had been in camp a week the
thick tepid surface water, which they all had to drink, coupled with
the intense heat, told on him, and for weeks he was so ill that he
could scarcely drag his feet along.

Owing to the custom of each scraper being compelled to clear a certain
distance every day, it was impossible--on account of the great stretch
to be covered by all the scrapers--for the foremen to more than two or
three times a day visit the works, and thus it was that Joe, unknown
to the foremen, was able to let his little driver lie for hours, when
he was at his weakest, in the thick grass, while he wrestled with the
stubborn mules and the scraper at the same time.

At last the evening of the torrid day with which this story opens, had
arrived. Those who had been fortunate enough to get to the surface
holes first, and get a little water, were washing their shirts, while
the less fortunate were lounging around the little tents--of which
there were hundreds--welcoming the cool breeze which the dark, ominous
clouds had brought u