FORE: don't want him to ever know nothin' about my letters to Mr."Yes," laughed Shorty, "and you should hear little Pete Skidmore and Sandy Baker lecturing them greenies as to the need o' lookin' carefully to their rear and beware o' rebels sneakin' 'round and attackin' their trains. Hold on. Look through this brush. There's Monty Scruggs explainin' the plan o' battle to a crowd of 'em. He don't know we're anywhere around. Listen and you'll hear something."
Perhaps we were wrong: perhaps the slavery which was dictated to us by the conditions which prevailed upon Fruyling's World was not the best sort available. But freedom is not, in any case, the answer. A man may die as the result of too much oxygen: a culture, likewise, may die of too much freedom.The train made a long stop on a switch and manuvered around a while, taking on some cars found there, and Si and Shorty seeing nothing to do went forward to another car, where they found some returning veterans, and were soon absorbed in a game of seven-up. Shorty had just successfully turned a jack from the bottom, and was snickering to himself that his fingers had not lost their cunning by long idleness, when the game was interrupted by a train-hand rushing up with the information:I work for the masters,"Yes, I reckon so."