at a bound!

"Took you for a jack-rabbit!" said a gruff voice close at hand, as he
landed on his two feet by the dusty roadside.

"Not a bad thing to be," Wakefield panted, falling in step with the
speaker, who was walking toward the town at a brisk pace.

"Not unless the dogs are round," the stranger demurred.

"Dogs! A jack-rabbit would never know how game he was, if it wasn't for
the dogs!"

"Any on your track?" asked the man with a grin. "Looked like it when you
come walluping down the mounting!"

"A whole pack of them," Wakefield answered. "Didn't you see anything of
them?"

"Can't say I did."

"You're not so smart as you look, then;" and they went jogging on like
comrades of a year's standing.

The new acquaintance appeared to be a man of sixty or thereabouts. A
crowbar and shovel which he carried over his shoulder seemed a part of
his rough laborer's costume. He had a shrewd, good sort of face, and a
Yankee twang to his speech.

"You carry those things as easy as a walking-stick," Wakefield observed,
ready to reciprocate in point of compliments. "What do you use them
for?"

"Ben mendin' the bit o' _codderoy_ down yonder," was the answer.

"Is that your trade?"

"No, not partic'larly. I make a trade of most anything I kin work at.
Happened to be out of a job last week, so I took up with this."

"Got through with it?"

"Yes; stopped off to-day. Got done just in time. They start in on the
road next week, 'n they've took me on."

"What road's that?"

"The new branch in."

"Oh! In to Lame Gulch. I heard they were going to start in on that."

"Yes; the 'Rocky Mounting' are doin' it. They say there'll be trains
runnin' in from the Divide inside of six months."

Wakefield looked sceptical; he had heard that sort of talk before.

"Do you like railroad work?" he asked.

"Not so well's this. I like my own job better, only 'taint so _stayin'_.
Might 've had another month's work, on the road to the canon over there;
but that would ha' ben the end on 't. So I'm goin' to throw up that job
this afternoon."

"What's wanted on the canon road?"

"Wal, it wants widenin', an' it wants bracin' up here 'n there, 'n
there's a power of big stuns to be weeded out. A reel purty job it's
goin' to be, too, in there by the runnin' water, among the _fars_ 'n the
birds 'n the squirrels."

"I suppose you could hardly have managed that all by yourself?"

"Oh, yes! It's an easy job."

"And you think you could h