“Here’s a gondola loaded with iron ore,” said Dick, and he made a curve with his left, which McGuire dodged. Before the foreman could recover, McGuire swung his right on the fellow’s left ear, and Suicide Dick collapsed like a punctured tire. “That must ’a been a sleeper,” said Jim, glancing at Jones. McGuire stood puffing like a helper on a heavy grade, and waiting for Dick to get to his feet. The two men came from the engine and stood by the man on the ground. Dick lifted his head and then sat up. Presently he got to his feet, and when he could see, he picked out McGuire and offered his hand. McGuire took it, and then Jones offered his hand, and then the yardmaster shook the hand of the tenderfoot. Dick walked over to a freight engine, opened the water-cock, and bathed his bleeding face. “Wash up,” said Williams, jerking his thumb in the direction of the freighter, and McGuire went over and washed. “I want to pay for that light before I go,” said McGuire, “and I owe this man an apology for striking him with it.” “Huh,” grunted Dick. “Don’t git silly,” said Jim. Dick handed his lamp, which had a frosted stripe near the top of the globe, to McGuire, and picked up the bent and battered frame that awhile ago had fallen across his face. “Don’t I quit?” asked McGuire, glancing from one face to the other. “Quit! what do you quit fur? Didn’t you win? They don’t nobody quit--you simply change places; an’ when you lick me you’ll be yardmaster, an’ have two stripes on yer glim, see?” McGuire could not reply. He was utterly unable to make these men out, and when Jones had climbed on to the engine, he stepped with the yardmaster on to the footboard, Dick, who was tired, took a seat on the bumper beam between them, and the little switcher trembled away down the track to where a freight conductor was swearing loudly in front of the switch-shanty. When the road had been extended to Leadville young McGuire, having attracted the notice and won the respect of the Superintendent, was sent up to take charge of the yards. Switchmen were scarcer there than they had been at Pueblo, for the town was wild and wide open. Those who came to work in the yards were the toughest of the tough; men who could not find employment east of Denver came here to railroad, ten thousand feet above the sea. McGuire undertook to improve the service. He put up a bulletin that said men must not fight on duty, and that all switchmen would be expected to be sober when they reported for work; that trainmen would be allowed but one place of residence, and that the caller would not look further than the address given for men who were wanted. “All switchmen,” said Flat-wheel Finigan, from the Texas Pacific, reading the bulletin. “Now, it’s plain to me that that ‘all’ means ‘Finigan,’” and the new bulletin was ripped ruthlessly from the wall of the yard-house.