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Show At the sidetrack they'd board the motor car which had replaced the old gandy-dancers' handcar and ride down the track to the day's tasks. These were tamping gravel, replacing rusted spikes and cracked joints, gauging and leveling the rails. One windfall that came occasionally from the railroad brought some an abundance of free firewood and material for building structures, As good as money-sometimes better-were cross ties taken out of the track after they had begun to decay- Getting old ties was always a happy surprise associated with "extra gangs." Without warning to us, a string of "outfit cars" would appear on our sidetrack. These cars were chiefly old boxcars remodelled to accommodate bunks and mess facilities for squads of Mexicans under Anglo-American bosses and timekeepers. The gangs pulled spikes, dug out partly decayed ties and inserted new ones. We homesteaders could take the old ties if we hastened to haul them off before they were burned. We'd build sheds, barns and corrals from them. With axe or adze we often had to chop away the lower one-fourth or one-third which had rotted down in the dirt or gravel. Some were fairly solid all through. A few ranchers built dwellings out of them. Being ten inches thick, they made walls that were much cooler in summer and warmer in winter than typical homestead shacks of pine boards less than an inch thick. East of Ben's Knoll, Ed Mc Ginty "stood 'em on end and toe-nailed 'em in the middle" in palisade fashion to make a house that was really comfortable when cracks were chinked. There was not one basement in Nada. But with railroad ties we contrived satisfactory substitutes. Some called them "dugouts," some |