The Up Grade

CHAPTER I

Stephen Loring sat on the edge of the sidewalk, his feet in the gutter. He was staring vacantly at the other side of the street, completely oblivious of his surroundings. No one would select a Phœnix sidewalk as an attractive resting-place, unless, like Loring, he were compelled by circumstances over which he had ceased to have control.

“Here, ‘Hombre’! How are you stacking up? Do you want a job?”

With an uncertain “Yes,” Loring arose from the sidewalk, before looking at the man who addressed him. Turning, he saw a brisk, sandy whiskered man about forty-five years of age, who fairly beamed with efficiency, and whose large protruding eyes seemed to see in every direction at once.

The questioner looked only for a second at the man before him. The face told its own story—the story of a man who had quit. The

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 tired eyes half apologized for the lines beneath them.

“Easterner,” decided the prospective employer, “since he wears a belt and not suspenders.” The stranger extended his hand in an energetic manner, and continued: “My name is McKay. The Quentin Mining Company, up in the hills, want men. They sent me down to round up a few. You are the forty-first man, and the boss bet me that I would only get forty.”

Loring’s head was still swimming as the result of a period of drunkenness which only lack of funds had brought to a close. By way of answer he merely nodded wearily and murmured: “My name is Loring.”

His taciturnity in no wise discouraged his interlocutor, for the latter paused merely to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief which might possibly once have been white. Then, slipping his arm through Loring’s, he went on with his communications: “The boss bet me I would lose half the men I got, but they will have their troubles trying to lose me. Come right along down to the station! I have them all corralled there with a friend

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 watching them. I don’t suppose you have such a hell of a lot of packing to do,” he drawled, looking at Loring’s disheveled apparel with a comprehending smile. “I went broke myself once in ’Frisco. Why, Phœnix is a gold mine for opportunities compared with that place! I’ll set you up to a drink now. There is nothing like it to clear your head.”

During this running fire of talk, McKay had convoyed Loring to a saloon. The proprietor was sitting listlessly behind a roulette wheel, idly spinning it, the while he made imaginary bets with himself on the results, and was seemingly as elated or depressed as if he had really won or lost money. Observing the entrance of the two men, he rose and sauntered over behind the bar.

“What will you have, gents?”

“I guess about two whiskies,” answered McKay. “Will you have something with us?”

“Well, I don’t mind if I do take a cigar,” answered the barkeeper, as, after pouring their drink, he stretched his arm into the dirty glass case. Then he aimed an ineffectual blow with a towel at the flies on the dirty mirror, and returned to his wheel.

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McKay wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and licked the last drops of whisky from his mustache. Then again taking Loring by the arm, he stepped out into the street. The heat, as they walked toward the railroad tracks, was terrific. The dusty stretch of road which led to the station shimmered with the glare. No one who could avoid it moved. In the shade of the buildings, the dogs sprawled limply. Now and then riders passed at a slow gait, the horses a mass of lather and dusty sweat. One poor animal loped by, driven on by spur, with head down, and tail too dejected to switch off the flies.

Loring watched him. “I think,” he mused, “that that poor horse feels as I do. Only he has not the alleviating satisfaction of knowing that he is to blame for it himself.”

The station platform was crowded with battered specimens of Mexican peons, chattering in high-pitched, slurred syllables. Their swarthy faces immeasurably irritated Stephen. Three white men, standing a little apart, looked rather scornfully at the crowd. The only difference in their appearance, however, was that while each of the white men had two suspenders,

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 the overalls of each of the Mexicans were supported by only one. It would have been hard to gather together a more bedraggled set of men than these were; but McKay counted them with loving pride.

“Forty-one! All here!” he exclaimed. “Hop aboard the train, boys; we’re off!”

“Railway fare comes out of your first two days’ work,” he exclaimed cheerfully to Loring.

The train was of the “mixed” type that crawls about the southwest. A dingy, battered, passenger coach trailed at the end of a long line of freight cars, which were labeled for the most part with the white circle and black cross of the “Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fé.” The men scrambled aboard, the engine grunted lazily, protestingly, and the long train slowly started. Until the train was well under way, McKay stood with his broad back against the door, his hand lying nonchalantly but significantly on a revolver beneath his vest, then, with a contented smile, he dropped into a seat.

Loring had no hat. In Arizona, a man may go without his trousers, and be called eccentric. To go without a hat is ungentlemanly. Consequently the three other white men whom

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 McKay had collected kept themselves aloof, and Stephen, crawling into a seat beside a voluble Chinaman, dozed off in misery, wondering whether the murmuring buzz that he heard was in his head, or in the car wheels. The Chinaman looked down at Stephen’s unshaven face and matted hair, and grinned pleasantly.

“He allee samee broke,” he murmured to himself, crooning with pleasure.

For six hours the train had been plowing its way across the desert, backing, stopping, groaning, wheezing. The blue line of the hills seemed little nearer than in the morning. Only the hills behind seemed farther away. Now and then, far out in the sage-brush, a film of dust hung low in the air, telling of some sheep outfit driving to new grazing lands. On the side of the train next Loring, a trail followed the line of the telegraph poles. Wherever the trail crossed the track and ran for a while on the opposite side, Stephen felt a childish anger at it, for otherwise he could amuse himself by counting the skeletons of horses and cattle, which every mile or so made splatches of pure white against the gray white of the dust. The passengers slouched in the hot seats, rolling countless

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 cigarettes with the dexterity which marks the Southwesterner, drawing the string of the “Durham” sack with a quick jerk of the teeth, at the close of the operation. The air of the car reeked with smoke. At each little station-shed new men joined the crowd, being received with looks of silent sympathy and invariably proffering a request for the “makings.” When this was received, they resignedly settled on the torn black leather of the seats, trying to accomplish the impossible feat of resting their necks on the edge of the backs without cramping their legs against the seats in front of them.

The train stopped suddenly with a jerk which was worse than usual, as if the engine had stumbled over itself. The brakeman, a target for many jests, hurried through the car.

“What have we stopped for now?” drawled McKay. “To enjoy the scenic effect?”

“Horse runned along ahead of the engine and bust his leg in the trestle,” laconically answered the brakeman.

“The son-of-a-gun! Now, the critter showed durned poor judgment, didn’t he?”

The brakeman swore mildly, and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned, carefully spat in

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 the empty stove, and the train casually moved on again.

Seeing a paper lying in the aisle, as he walked down the car, the brakeman stooped and picked it up. His eye fell upon a large red seal, and much elaborate writing. With a puzzled expression he read the document.