anybody else's, I expect to do
so," he retorted in high tones.

"But you cannot tell me how to run my business!" thundered McCloud,
leaning over the table in front of him.

As the two men glared at each other Rooney Lee opened the door. His
surprise at the situation amounted to consternation. He shuffled to
the corner of the room, and while McCloud and Dunning engaged hotly
again, Rooney, from the corner, threw a shot of his own into the
quarrel. "On time!" he roared.

The angry men turned. "What's on time?" asked McCloud curtly.

"Number One; she's in and changing engines. I told them you were going
West," declared Rooney in so deep tones that his fiction would never
have been suspected. If his cue had been, "My lord, the conductor
waits," it could not have been rung in more opportunely.

Dunning, to emphasize, without a further word, his disgust for the
situation and his contempt for the management, tore into scraps the
pass that had been given him, threw the scraps on the floor, took a
cigar from his pocket and lighted it; insolence could do no more.

McCloud looked over at the despatcher. "No, I am not going West,
Rooney. But if you will be good enough to stay here and find out from
this man just how this railroad ought to be run, I will go to bed. He
can tell you; the microbe seems to be working in his mind right now,"
said McCloud, slamming down the roll-top of his desk. And with Lance
Dunning glaring at him, somewhat speechless, he put on his hat and
walked out of the room.

It was but one of many disagreeable incidents due to the loss of the
bridge. Complications arising from the tie-up followed him at every
turn. It seemed as if he could not get away from trouble following
trouble. After forty hours further of toil, relieved by four hours of
sleep, McCloud found himself, rather dead than alive, back at Medicine
Bend and in the little dining-room at Marion's. Coming in at the
cottage door on Fort Street, he dropped into a chair. The cottage
rooms were empty. He heard Marion's voice in the front shop; she was
engaged with a customer. Putting his head on the table to wait a
moment, nature asserted itself and McCloud fell asleep. He woke
hearing a voice that he had heard in dreams. Perhaps no other voice
could have wakened him, for he slept for a few minutes a death-like
sleep. At all events, Dicksie Dunning was in the front room and
McCloud heard her. She was talking with Marion about the burning of
Smoky