He was followed by several security guards with guns, looking around, keeping an eye on the movements.

Blake put his hands behind his back, staring at the busy Chinese laborers in front of him and the railroad tracks that were stretching forward.

He was followed by several security guards with guns, looking around, keeping an eye on the movements.

"How far can you go in a day now?" Blake turned his head and asked the foreman in the back.

"Less than a mile, sir." The foreman ran up.

"Provided that there are enough personnel." He added, "These Chinese workers are very skilled. ”

Blake nodded in satisfaction.

The two stood on the edge of the construction site and chatted about the laying of the railway.

"I've heard that there are a lot of people in the local area who are unhappy with the railway company." The foreman asked cautiously.

"You don't have to worry about that, you just lay your railroad tracks." Blake gestured to the armed men behind him, "It's just a bunch of mud legs." ”

"New Mexico farmers are really crazy." He muttered, "Think it's expensive? If you have the ability, don't use my train to transport goods. ”

He looked behind him at the Rio Grande, where several boats passed.

Near the site camp there is a dock where their rails and sleepers, many of which are brought directly from the dock.

"Wouldn't it be nice to ship it by boat?" Blake chuckled, "There's no river south of New Mexico, though. ”

Blake's left eyelid has been jumping since yesterday when Byrne ran to his office with two men and said something like that.

On the streets of San Francisco, he met a yellow-skinned, blind old man who was a good diviner.

The old man asked him for 20 cents, and guessed exactly who he was, the date of his birth, and how many brothers and sisters there were in the family.

The old man told him that it was called "fortune telling" to them.

He told Blake that if his left eyelid jumped, it meant that a catastrophe was coming.

Therefore, yesterday he asked all the security personnel at the station to prepare and go to the railway site today to arm the guards.

"Boss, look over there!" The security guard behind Blake suddenly pointed to a group of people in the distance and said behind his ear.

Blake looked in the direction he was pointing.

In the distance, a group of people appeared sparsely, walking along the railroad tracks, towards them.

They held all sorts of signs in their hands, shouting as they went:

"Lower the freight rate!"

"Reject monopolies!"

"Dialogue on an equal footing!"

"Did they bring weapons?" Blake asked his security captain, a little nervously.

"Like, no." The captain put down the binoculars in his hand, "Not even a dung fork." ”

"That's it?" Blake's heart relaxed, and he snorted, dismissive.

He was originally worried that if there were a large number of people, he would not be able to deal with them, and who knew that there would be only these three melons and two dates.

The Chinese workers, who were busy with their heads down, also heard the movement in the distance, and raised their heads one after another, but they were angrily reprimanded by the foreman:

"Look, get to work!"

"Listen, wait a minute, you take a few people, stand near the construction site with guns, don't shoot, do you understand?" Blake instructed the security captain.

"But what if they storm the construction site?" The security captain hesitated.

"Then shoot your guns in the sky! Understood. Blake held out an index finger and pointed to the sky, "Just these people, when they heard the gunshots, they ran away." ”

The security captain followed his request and led armed men to stand on guard near the construction site, and they were on standby.

Oliver Dunleavy, president of the Grange Society, was at the front of the line as the organizer of the protest.

Byrne, the leader of the "Knights", did not show up at the rally in the square, only the Fur and Timber Guilds came, and they were also victims of the high railway fares.

Dunleavy didn't wait for the "Knights", and when the time came, he set off with people.

However, to his surprise, when he was in the square for a meeting, there were not many people, but when he was close to the construction site, he turned his head and found that there were more and more people in the team.

"Do you know these people?" Dunleavy asked a young man beside him.

"I don't know, maybe it's someone who sympathizes with what we're going through." The lad took one look at it and replied, "We have been speaking in the square for several days, and there are always people who agree with us. ”

Dunleavy nodded.

"As we agreed before, disrupting their work, I don't believe we won't see Blake." He said, "Louder, we're going to get our ideas out there!" ”

The procession came to the site where the rails were laid noisily.

But when they saw the armed men with loaded guns, the shouting of slogans suddenly became half as loud.

"Dunleavy, we don't seem to need to look for Blake." The young man next to Dunleavy stared blankly at the construction site in front of him.

Blake, standing proudly by the river with the foreman.

Several armed men escorted him in the middle.

"Did you see Byrne and his people?" Blake whispered to the security captain beside him.

The security captain lifted his hat and shook his head: "No, the man didn't come yesterday." ”

"Hmph, I thought he had some great plan, it turned out to be to put these fools from the Agricultural Cooperative in front," Blake was a little less worried.

He looked at Dunleavy and them, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and his attitude was extremely arrogant.

The two sides of the people confronted each other in front of the construction site, and the voice on Glench's side was a little quieter until it disappeared.

The momentum that had just gotten up a little bit was suppressed.

Some of the farmers holding signs have already begun to retreat.

Looking at the guns in the hands of those armed men, they felt for a while that it was not unacceptable that the freight was a little higher.

"Say something, Dunleavy, say something, or we're done." The young man next to Dunleavy whispered to him.

"Don't panic, I don't believe they dare to shoot!" Dunleavy took a deep breath and said loudly, "Blake, we came here today just to ask you for an explanation." ”

Blakeley didn't want to pay any attention to him, and he told the foreman, "Ignore that fool and let the workers go on." ”

"You take the land that New Mexico has granted, you use these Chinese laborers, you enjoy the lowest interest loans from state banks, your cost is low, but you charge the farmers and merchants of this land the highest freight, aren't you afraid that the state government will sanction you?"

Dunleavy said, looking around.

"The farmers here have worked hard all year long, and all the profits are discounted to your freight! You have to give everyone an account. ”

The anger of the farmers, who had just died down, was revived again.

"Sanctions!"

"Price reduction!"

"Get out!"

……

Blake simply didn't even look at him.

It's your business that my cost is low! I didn't see you guys making trouble when there was no railway? If you don't use it, you don't need it, and naturally someone will use it, for example, Rockefeller's tank train.

Seeing that Blake ignored them, the farmers' emotions became more intense, and they began to approach the construction site.

"Smack!"

The captain of the guard fired a shot into the sky: "This railroad is the private property of the Santa Fe Railroad Company, if you dare to take another step forward, or if there are any other drastic actions, we will fight back to protect the company's assets!" ”

The Chinese workers who were laying the railroad tracks squatted down with their heads in their hands.

"It's none of your business, you keep working!" The foreman said to them.

And this gunshot also calmed down the farmers who were about to move.

These were small farmers who had listened to Dunleavy and had not brought guns, but they were not merciful.

All sorts of expletives began to ring over the construction site.

"Blake! You bitch! That is, Lao Tzu didn't bring the gun over, if it was on Lao Tzu's farm, I would open a few more holes in your ass! ”

"Blake, you're a piece of! You and your railroad company are a piece of! ”

"You guys with guns, you're Blake's dogs! Lick his XXX! ”

……

Scolding became more and more vulgar and rose to the level of ethics.

Dunleavy found himself gradually losing control of the situation, and a march with his own demands turned into a farce.

If this continues, it is estimated that when they are tired of scolding, this parade will be over.

However, the unexpected happened.

"Bang."

Another gunshot rang out.

The security captain looked around blankly: "Which of you shot?" ”

Several armed men around him shook their heads.

"Yes, it's the other side." A guard at the front of the construction site turned his head.

His hands were clutching his chest, blood slowly pouring from between his fingers.

The guard, slowly, fell to the ground.

"Dead man! Shoot and kill! ”

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One more, two more later

(End of chapter)