Loring opened his eyes as he heard the morning whistle, and, at first a little dazed, looked about him. Then he rose and stretched himself. Every bone in his body ached as the result of the night on the hard ground. All around him men were yawning sleepily as they crawled out of their blankets. Close beside the camp ran the tawny Gila river. Stephen walked down to the bank, and kneeling on a small rock which lay half afloat in the ooze mud, endeavored to wash. Then, refreshed, if not much cleaner, he made his way to the cook tent. Here under a fly stretched on poles were four long tables, heaped with tin plates and condensed milk cans. The monotony of the table furnishings was broken by a few dingy cans, decorated with labels of very red tomatoes, which served as sugar and salt holders. The old inhabitants of the camp were noisily greeting the newcomers, pounding on their cups and whistling whenever they perceived some old acquaintance. The labor of the Southwest is of a very vagrant quality. A man merely works until he has money enough to move. Each time that he moves he spends all his money on a celebration, so that his wanderings, though frequent, are not long in duration. Thus many of these men had met before, around the smelters in Globe, in the Tucson district, or north in the Yavapai. Loring found a place on one of the rickety benches, and looked toward the coffee-bucket. Sullivan, who was opposite to him, growled gloomily: “Say, the grub is rank. This coffee is festered water.” The description, though not an appetizing one with which to begin a meal, was not without truth. In varying degree it might have been applied to the rest of the breakfast, from the red, tasteless frijollas to the stew, which consisted of a few shreds of over-cooked meat, in the midst of a nondescript mass of questionable grease. As Loring had finished eating what he could of the meal, and was contemplating borrowing some tobacco, the foremen, who, as etiquette demands, had eaten their breakfast in a group apart from the men, began to look at their watches, and to stir about actively. “Hurry up now, boys! Out on the grade—quick! _Vamos!_ Only five minutes more now!” they called. The tools of the old workmen were scattered along the grade, where each had dropped them at the end of the previous day’s work. The newcomers were marched single file, through the tool-house, where each picked out his implements, then started off to the place assigned him. Loring, not from altruism, but because he did not know the difference which well chosen tools make in a long day’s toil, made no effort to grab. In consequence he emerged from the shed supplied with a split shovel, and a dull, loose-headed pick. A foreman beckoned him to a place on the grade, opposite to the cook tent. He immediately started to swing his pick. “Don’t be in such a hell of a hurry!” called Sullivan, “you’ll have plenty to do later.”