oney.

Only the grin came too soon.

A week or so passed, pay day came and went--and the day after that a
general order from the East hit the Hill Division like a landslide.

Carleton slit the innocent-looking official manila open with his paper
knife, chucked the envelope in the wastebasket, read the communication,
read it again with gathering brows--and sent for Regan. He handed the
form to the master mechanic without a word, as the latter entered the
office.

Regan read it--read it again, as his chief had--and two hectic spots
grew bright on his cheeks. It was brief, curt, cold--for the good of
the service, safety, and operating efficiency, it stated. In a word,
on and after the first of the month the services of employees over the
age of sixty years would no longer be required. Those were early days
in railroading; not a word about pensions, not a word about half-pay;
just sixty years and--out!

The paper crackled in Regan's clenched fists; Carleton was beating a
tattoo on his teeth with the mouthpiece of his pipe--there wasn't
another sound in the office for a moment. Then Regan spoke--and his
voice broke a little.

"It's a damned shame!" he said, through his teeth. "It's that skunk
Campbell."

"How many men does it affect?" asked Carleton, looking through the
window.

"I don't know," said the little master mechanic bitterly; "but I know
one that it'll hit harder than all the rest put together--and that's
old Dan MacCaffery."

There was hurt in the super's gray eyes, as he looked at the
big-hearted little master mechanic's working face.

"I was thinking of old Dan myself," he said, in his low, quiet way.

"He hasn't a cent!" stormed Regan. "Not a cent--not a thing on earth
to fall back on. Think of it! Him and that little old missus of his,
God bless her sweet old face, that have been scrimping all these years
to pay back what that blasted kid robbed out of the bank. It ain't
right, Carleton--it ain't right--it's hell, that's what it is! Sixty
years! There ain't a better man ever pulled a latch in a cab, there
ain't a better one pulling one anywhere to-day than old Dan MacCaffery.
And--and I kind of feel as though I were to blame for this, in a way."

"To blame?" repeated Carleton.

"I put him on that run, and Riley put old Pete Chartrand on. It kind
of stuck them under Campbell's nose. The two of them together, the two
oldest men--and the blamedest luck that ever happened on a run!