At sunset the same horde dropped in, dirty and hot
and lame, and fought for seats while others waited for their turn.
Out on the level plain stretched the hundreds of teams, moving on
and returning, the drivers shouting, the horses bending. The hot sun
glared, the wind whipped up the dust, the laborers speeded up to the
shout of the boss. And ever westward crept the low, level, yellow
bank of sand and gravel--the road-bed of the first transcontinental
railway.
Thus the daytime had its turmoil, too, but this last was splendid,
like the toil of heroes united to gain some common end. And the army
of soldiers waited, ever keen-eyed, for the skulking Sioux.
Mull, the boss of the camp, became a friend of Durade's. The wily
Spaniard could draw to him any class of men. This Mull had been a
driver of truck-horses in New York, and now he was a driver of men.
He was huge, like a bull, heavy-lipped and red-cheeked, hairy and
coarse, with big sunken eyes. A brute--a caveman. He drank; he
gambled. He was at once a bully and a pirate. Responsible to no one
but his contractor, he hated the contractor and he hated his job. He
was great in his place, brutal with fist and foot, a gleaner of
results from hard men at a hard time.
He won gold from Durade, or, as Fresno guffawed to a comrade, he had
been allowed to win it.
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