added, rising.

"Men! Yes, we want men to drive mules and stakes, to grade, lay track,
and fight Indians--but engineers? We've got 'em to use for cross-ties."

"I am able and willing to do any of these things--except the
Indians--and I'll tackle that if nothing else offers."

"There's a man for you," said the General to his assistant as Bradford
went out with a note to Jack Casement, who was handling the graders,
teamsters, and Indian fighters. "No influential friends, no baggage, no
character, just a man, able to stand alone--a real man in corduroys and
flannels."

Coming up to the gang, Bradford singled out the man who was swearing
loudest and delivered the note. "Fall in," said the straw boss, and
Bradford got busy. He could handle one end of a thirty-foot rail with
ease, and before night, without exciting the other workmen or making any
show of superiority, he had quietly, almost unconsciously, become the
leader of the track-laying gang. The foreman called Casement's
attention to the new man, and Casement watched him for five minutes.

Two days later a big teamster, having found a bottle of fire-water,
became separated from his reasoning faculties, crowded under an old
dump-cart, and fell asleep.

"Say, young fellow," said the foreman, panting up the grade to where
Bradford was placing a rail, "can you skin mules?"

"I can drive a team, if that's what you mean," was the reply.