The Trail of 98 Read Free Page A

the situation forced me from my citadel of pleasant dreams, and
confronted me with the grimmer realities of life.
    I became a habitue of the ten-cent restaurant. I was amazed to find how
excellent a meal I could have for ten cents. Oh for the uncaptious appetite of
these haphazard days! With some thirty-odd dollars standing between me and
starvation, it was obvious I must become a hewer of wood and a drawer of water,
and to this end I haunted the employment offices. They were bare, sordid rooms,
crowded by men who chewed, swapped stories, yawned and studied the blackboards
where the day's wants were set forth. Only driven to labour by dire necessity,
their lives, I found, held three phaseslooking for work, working, spending the
proceeds. They were the Great Unskilled, face to face with the necessary evil of
toil.
    One morning, on seeking my favourite labour bureau, I found an unusual
flutter among the bench-warmers. A big contractor wanted fifty men immediately.
No experience was required, and the wages were to be two dollars a day. With a
number of others I pressed forward, was interviewed and accepted. The same day
we were marched in a body to the railway depot and herded into a fourth-class
car.
    Where we were going I knew not; of what we were going to do I had no inkling.
I only knew we were southbound, and at long last I might fairly consider myself
to be the shuttlecock of fortune.
    ----

CHAPTER IV
    I left San Francisco blanketed in grey fog and besomed by a roaring wind;
when I opened my eyes I was in a land of spacious sky and broad, clean sunshine.
Orange groves rushed to welcome us; orchards of almond and olive twinkled
joyfully in the limpid air; tall, gaunt and ragged, the scaly eucalyptus
fluttered at us a morning greeting, while snowy houses, wallowing in greenery,
flashed a smile as we rumbled past. It seemed like a land of promise, of song
and sunshine, and silent and apart I sat to admire and to enjoy.
    "Looks pretty swell, don't it?"
    I will call him the Prodigal. He was about my own age, thin, but sun-browned
and healthy. His hair was darkly red and silky, his teeth white and even as
young corn. His eyes twinkled with a humorsome light, but his face was shrewd,
alert and aggressive.
    "Yes," I said soberly, for I have always been backward with strangers.
    "Pretty good line. The banana belt. Old Sol working overtime. Blossom and
fruit cavorting on the same tree. Eternal summer. Land of the manana , the
festive frijole, the never-chilly chili. Ever been here before?"
    "No."
    "Neither have I. Glad I
came, even if it's to do the horny-handed son of toil stunt. Got the
makings?"
    "No, I'm sorry; I don't smoke."
    "All right, guess I got enough."
    He pulled forth a limp sack of powdery tobacco, and spilled some grains into
a brown cigarette paper, twisting it deftly and bending over the ends. Then he
smoked with such enjoyment that I envied him.
    "Where are we going, have you any idea?" I asked.
    "Search me," he said, inhaling deeply; "the guy in charge isn't exactly a
free information bureau. When it comes to peddling the bull con he's there, but
when you try to pry off a few slabs of cold hard fact it's his Sunday off."
    "But," I persisted, "have you no idea?"
    "Well, one thing you can bank on, they'll work the Judas out of us. The
gentle grafter nestles in our midst. This here's a cinch game and we are the
fall guys. The contractors are a bum outfit. They'll squeeze us at every turn.
There was two plunks to the employment man; they got half. Twenty for railway
fare; they come in on that. Stop at certain hotels: a rake-off there. Stage
fare: more graft. Five dollars a week for board: costs them two-fifty, and they
will be stomach robbers at that. Then they'll ring in twice as many men as they
need, and lay us off half the time, so that we just about even up on our board
bill. Oh, I'm onto their curves all right."
    "Then," I said, "if you
know so much why did you come