The Rainy Day Railroad War

The Rainy Day Railroad War, by
Holman Day

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Title: The Rainy Day Railroad War
Author: Holman Day
Release Date: September 18, 2007 [EBook #22666]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR ***

Produced by David Widger

THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR
By Holman Day
1906

[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: Frontispiece]

THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR
CHAPTER ONE--THE
TRYING-OUT OF ONE RODNEY PARKER, ASSISTANT
ENGINEER
All at once the stump-dotted, rocky hillside became clamorous and
animated. From the little shacks sheathed with tarred paper, from the
sodded huts, from burrows sunk into the hillside men suddenly came
popping out with shrill cries.
Three men, shouldering surveying instruments, stopped in their tracks
on the freshly-heaped soil of a new railroad embankment, and gazed up
at the hillside. The railroad skirted its foot and the sudden activity on
the slope was in full view. "Your lambs seem to be blatting around the
fodder-rack once more, Parker," observed the man who lugged the
transit. He was a thin, elderly man and his tone was somewhat satirical.
The men were running toward a common center, uttering cries in shrill
staccato and sounding like yelping dogs.
Parker drove the spurs of his tripod into the soft soil and stared up at
the hillside, his tanned brow puckering with apprehension.
"I don't think there's much of the lamb to that rush," observed the third
man; "they sound to me more like hyenas after raw meat."
"It will be Dominick they'll eat, then," said the elderly man.
"I'm afraid you put the Old Harry into 'em last week when you took
their part and straightened out Dominick's bill of fare," he went on.
"They probably think they can get quail on toast now if they yap for it."

"I believe in letting dagoes fight it out among themselves," announced
the third man with much derision. "Helping one of 'em is like picking a
hornet out of a puddle. You'll get stung while doing it."
The men on the hillside had knotted themselves into a jostling group
before the door of a long, low structure sheathed with tarred paper like
the shacks. In the sunshine an occasional glint flashed above their
heads.
"Yes, their stingers are out," remarked the elderly man drily. "If they've
got Dominick cornered in that eating camp I'm thinking this will be the
day that he'll get his----whatever it is, they've laid up for him."
"He promised me there should be no more weevils and no more spoiled
meat," cried the one who had been addressed as Parker, a young man
whose earnest face now expressed deep trouble. "As matters were
going, those Italians were half starved and doing hardly half a day's
work in nine hours. Their padrone was putting the food rake-off into
his own pocket."
"I'm not backing up Dominick," said the other. "But when you took the
men's part and laid down the law to him on the grub question you gave
them their cue for general rebellion. Ten chances to one the padrone
has done as he agreed. I reckon you scared him enough for that. Now
they're probably around with knives looking for napkins and sparkling
red wine. I tell you, Parker, you're inviting trouble when you go to
boosting up what you call the oppressed multitude."
"That's a pretty hard view to take of the world and the people in it, Mr.
Searles," replied the youth. "There ought to be a bit of merit and
encouragement in a man's going out of his way to right a wrong."
"Well, Parker, I'm hired as construction engineer on the P. K. & R.
railroad system and I've worked for the road a good many years and
found that I get along best when I am attending strictly to my own
business in my own line. I told you at the time you butted into that dago
row you were laying up trouble either for yourself or for some one
else--and I guess it's some one else."

A series of pistol shots popped smartly on the hillside, the reports
partly muffled by the thin walls of the shack. The cries of the men
outside became shrieks. The next instant the side wall bellied outward
and then burst asunder. A man came hustling through the opening,
evidently self-propelled, for he struck lightly on his feet and began to
run down the steep hill. A