being shoved off on the tracks, let alone
trying to keep a modest breadth of the platform clear. And when the
train came to a stop with screeching brake-shoes, and the side door of
the express car was shot back with a dramatic bang by some one inside,
the crowd seemed to get altogether beyond P. Walton's control, and
surged past him. As they handed out a hard-visaged, bullet-headed
customer, whose arms were tightly lashed behind him, P. Walton was
pretty well back by the ticket-office window with the crowd between him
and the center of attraction--and P. Walton was holding his
handkerchief to his lips, flecking the handkerchief with a spot or two
of red, and coughing rather badly. Carleton found him there when the
crowd, trailing Carruthers and his prisoner uptown, thinned out--and
Carleton sent him home.

P. Walton, however, did not go home, though he started in that
direction. He followed in the rear of the crowd up to Carruthers'
place, saw steel bracelets replace the cords around the captive's
wrists, saw the captive's legs securely bound together, and the captive
chucked into Carruthers' back shed--this was in the early days, and Big
Cloud hadn't yet risen to the dignity of a jail--with about as much
formality as would be used in handling a sack of meal. After that,
Carruthers barred the door by slamming the long, two-inch-thick piece
of timber, that worked on a pivot in the center, home into its iron
rests with a flourish of finality, as though to indicate that the show
was over--and the crowd dispersed--the men heading for the swinging
doors of the Blazing Star; and the women for their own back fences.

P. Walton, with a kind of grim smile on his lips, retraced his steps to
the station, climbed the stairs, and started through the super's room
to reach his own desk.

Carleton removed his pipe from his mouth, and stared angrily as the
other came in.

"You blamed idiot!" he exploded. "I thought I told you to go home!"

"I'm feeling better," said P. Walton. "I haven't got those night
orders out yet for the roundhouse. There's three specials from the
East to-night."

"Well, Halstead can attend to them," said Carleton, a kindliness
creeping into the tones that he tried to make gruff. "What are you
trying to do--commit suicide?"

"No," said P. Walton, with a steady smile, "just my work. It was a
little too violent exercise trying to hold the crowd, that was all.
But I'm all right now."

"You blamed