“Who is the new man?” he asked.

“Nobody seems to know him by name.  But he is a friend of Ford’s all right.  That is how he gets the job.”

Hallock took a plug of black tobacco from his pocket, and cut a small sliver from it for a chew.  It was his one concession to appetite, and he made it grudgingly.

“A college man, I suppose,” he commented.  “Otherwise Ford wouldn’t be backing him.”

“Oh, yes, I guess it’s safe to count on that.”

“And a man who will carry out the Ford policy?”

Gridley’s eyes smiled, but lower down on his face the smile became a cynical baring of the strong teeth.

“A man who may try to carry out the Ford idea,” he qualified; adding, “The desert will get hold of him and eat him alive, as it has the others.”

“Maybe,” said Hallock thoughtfully.  Then, with sudden heat, “It’s hell, Gridley!  I’ve hung on and waited and done the work for their figure-heads, one after another.  The job belongs to me!”

This time Gridley’s smile was a thinly veiled sneer.

“What makes you so keen for it, Hallock?” he asked.  “You have no use for the money, and still less for the title.”

“How do you know I don’t want the salary?” snapped the other.  “Because I don’t have my clothes made in New York, or blow myself across the tables in Mesa Avenue, does it go without saying that I have no use for money?”

“But you haven’t, you know you haven’t,” was the taunting rejoinder.  “And the title, when you have, and have always had, the real authority, means still less to you.”

“Authority!” scoffed the chief clerk, his gloomy eyes lighting up with slow fire, “this maverick railroad don’t know the meaning of the word.  By God!  Gridley, if I had the club in my hands for a few months I’d show ’em!”

“Oh, I guess not,” said the cigar-smoker easily.  “You’re not built right for it, Hallock; the desert would give you the horse-laugh.”

“Would it?  Not before I had squared off a few old debts, Gridley; don’t you forget that.”

There was a menace in the harsh retort, and the chief clerk made no attempt to conceal it.

“Threatening, are you?” jeered the full-fed one, still good-naturedly sarcastic.  “What would you do, if you had the chance, Rankin?”

“I’d kill out some of the waste and recklessness, if it took the last man off the pay-rolls; and I’d break even with at least one man over in the Timanyoni, if I had to use the whole Red Butte Western to pry him loose!”

“Flemister again?” queried the master-mechanic.  And then, in mild deprecation, “You are a bad loser, Hallock, a damned bad loser.  But I suppose that is one of your limitations.”

A silence settled down upon the upper room, but Gridley made no move to go.  Out in the yards the night men were making up a westbound freight, and the crashing of box-cars carelessly “kicked” into place added its note to the discord of inefficiency and destructive breakage.