ng. But it'll come. You wait! I'll show
'em some day!"

Sammy Durgan lost himself in meditation. After a little, he spoke
again.

"I'm not sure about the law," said Sammy Durgan, "but on account of the
fellow that the bullet hit, apart from MacMurtrey taking note of it,
'twould be as well, anyway, if I changed my name temporarily till the
temper of all concerned is cooled down a bit." Sammy Durgan rose from
the stump. "I'll start West," said Sammy Durgan, "and get a lift on
the first way-freight before the word is out. I'm thinking they'll be
asking for Sammy Durgan down at Big Cloud."

And they were. It was quite true. Down at headquarters they were
earnestly concerned about Sammy Durgan. Sammy Durgan had made no
mistake in that respect.

"Fire Sammy Durgan," wired the roadmaster to the nearest station for
transmission by first train to Pat Donovan, the section boss--and he
got this answer back the next morning:

I. P. SPEARS, Roadmaster, Big Cloud:
Sammy Durgan missing.
P. DONOVAN."

Missing--that was it. Just that, nothing more--as though the earth had
opened and swallowed him up, Sammy Durgan had disappeared. And while
Carleton grew red and apoplectic over the claim sheet for damages
presented by the moving-picture company, and Regan fumed and tugged at
his scraggly brown mustache at thought of the damage to his rolling
stock--Sammy Durgan was just missing, that was all--just missing.
Nobody knew where Sammy Durgan had gone. Nobody had seen him. Station
agents, operators, road bosses, section bosses, construction bosses and
everybody else were instructed to report--and they did. They
reported--nothing. Regan even went so far as to ask Mrs. Durgan.

"Is ut here to taunt me, yez are!" screamed Mrs. Durgan bitterly--and
slammed the door in the little master mechanic's face.

"I guess," observed Regan to himself, as he gazed at the
uncommunicative door panels, "I guess mabbe the neighbors have been
neighborly--h'm? But I guess, too, we're rid of Sammy Durgan at last;
and I dunno but what that comes pretty near squaring accounts for
window glass and about a million other incidentals. Only," added the
little master mechanic, screwing up his eyes, as he walked back to the
station, "only it would have been more to my liking to have got my
hands on him first--and got rid of him after!"

But Regan, and Carleton, and Mrs. Durgan, and the Hill Division
generally were not rid of Sammy Durga