d. This was
quite a different proposition, for the mileage of the Hill Division was
big. For an hour Sammy Durgan sat there, scratching at his red hair,
puckering his leathery face, and kicking at the rail to the detriment
of the toe-cap of his boot. He knew the division well, very well--too
well. At the moment, he could not place any spot upon it that he did
not know, or, perhaps what was more to the point, that was not
intimately acquainted with him. Road work, bridge work, yard work,
station work passed in review before him, but always and with each one
arose a certain well-remembered face whose expression, Biblically
speaking, was not like unto a father's on the prodigal's return.

And then at last Sammy Durgan sighed in relief. There was Pat Donovan!
True, he and Pat Donovan had had a little misunderstanding incident to
the premature explosion of a keg of blasting powder that had wrecked
the construction shanty, but that was two years ago and under quite
different conditions. Pat Donovan now was a section boss on a desolate
stretch of track about five stations up the line, and his only
companions were a few Polacks who spoke English like parrots--voluble
enough as far as it went, but not entirely soul-filling to an Irishman
of the sociable tendencies of Pat Donovan. He could certainly get a
job out of Pat Donovan.

The matter ultimately settled, Sammy Durgan stood up. Across the yards
they were making up the early morning freight. That solved the
transportation question. A railroad man, whether he was out of a job
or not, could always get a lift in any caboose that carried the markers
or the tail lights of old Bill Wallis' train. Sammy Durgan got a lift
that morning up to Dam River; and there, a little further along the
line, he ran Pat Donovan and his Polacks to earth where they were
putting in some new ties.

Donovan, a squat, wizened, red eye-lidded little man, with a short,
bristling crop of sandy whiskers circling his jaws like an ill-trimmed
hedge, hurriedly drew back the hand he had extended as he caught the
tail end of Sammy Durgan's greeting.

"Oh, a job is ut?" he inquired without enthusiasm, from his seat on a
pile of ties beside the track.

"Listen, here, Pat," said Sammy Durgan brightly. "Listen to----"

"Yez have yer nerve wid yez!" observed the section boss caustically.
"Yez put me in moind av a felley I had workin' fer me wance, for yez
are the dead spit av him, Sammy Durgan, tha