If McGuire discharged a man, a worse one came to fill the vacancy; and the yardmaster became discouraged. He sent in his resignation, but no attention was paid to it. Nobody came to relieve him, and so he worked on, always short-handed and often alone. Winter came, and it was next to impossible to get men to handle the company’s business. A large force of laborers was kept constantly at work shovelling snow from the many spurs that ran up to the mines or down to the smelters. Of course McGuire could only offer schedule pay that was fixed at Denver, and it was hard to get men to switch in the snow for three dollars when they could have five for sawing wood or tending bar. After much correspondence the yardmaster succeeded in having the pay of switchmen raised to four dollars in the Leadville yards, and in a little while had a reasonably sober gang chasing the three yard engines that had been sent up to do the work of four. Things went fairly well until the foreman got drunk one day, and had to be discharged. The wronged man went over to the Cadillac and told his troubles to the barkeeper. His tale was overheard by a lucky miner who had just sold a prospect hole for ten thousand. This miner, with the liberality of a man moved by spirits, proposed that the two open a saloon-restaurant. He would furnish the money, the yardman the experience, nerve, and good-will. The offer was accepted. They bought a storeroom that had cost six hundred for sixteen, and in less than a week from the day of his dismissal the ex-foreman posted the following notice above his front door:-- “Wanted--Seven swift biscuit shooters, any sex, creed, or color--Wages, six dollars a day.” Thirty minutes later seven of McGuire’s switchmen were switching in the “Green Café.” Later one of the men went back and brought the foreman from the yards, who was installed as yardmaster in the new restaurant. The manager became the “G. M.,” and the talk was railroad talk and nothing else. The “switch-list” was not printed, but was shown orally to each patron as he took his seat. “Ride ’em in, ride ’em in,” called the yardmaster to a couple of switchmen who were pitching plates of beans through a narrow window from the kitchen to the dining-room. “Drop the dope down the main line;” and one of the men shot a yellow bowl of butter on to the centre table. “Sand on No. 1--north spur,” called the head waiter, and before he had finished a sugar-bowl was dropped upon the first table to the right. “Pull the pin on that load on No. 2 south,” yelled the general manager. The yardmaster and one of the switchmen lifted a fat man from the sawdust floor and put him in a back room to cool. “Pancakes, warm, please,” said a man who seemed to be afraid of being overheard. “String o’ flats with a hot box,” called the yardmaster; and so it went from morning till midnight, and from midnight till morning again.