"I dunno," he said. "I figure you must have been brought into the
world for something, but I dunno what it is. You're not to blame for
your father; but if I let a mother of mine, and nearing sixty years,
slave out the little time she's got left, I'd want to crawl out
somewhere amongst the buttes and make coyote meat of myself. Jump you
before you've done anything--eh!" The little master mechanic's voice
rose suddenly. "I saw you sneak uptown an hour ago when you left the
pay car--one drink for a start--h'm! Well, you put another on top of
it, and it'll be for a--finish! I'd do a lot for that fine old lady of
a mother of yours, and that's why I've taken the trouble to come over
here and warn you what'll happen if you put in the night you're heading
for. 'Tisn't because I can't run the roundhouse without you, my
bucko--mind that!"

Bradley was snapping his fingers in his queer, nervous way. Reddy
MacQuigan made no answer; at least, Bradley did not hear any, but he
heard Regan moving toward the door. He had no wish to talk to the
master mechanic any more, not just at that moment anyhow, so he
crunched through the engine cinders to another door, entering the
roundhouse as Regan went out on the turntable and headed across the
tracks for the station.

Two pits away, Reddy MacQuigan, with a black scowl on his face, leaned
against the steam chest of the 1004. Bradley, pretending not to see
him, swung through the gangway and into the cab of the 582. There, for
half an hour, he busied himself in an aimless fashion; but with an eye
out for the young wiper, as the latter moved about the roundhouse.

The whistle was blowing and Reddy was pulling off his overalls, as
Bradley swung out of his cab again; and he was shading a match from the
wind over the bowl of his pipe just across the turntable, as Reddy came
out. He tossed away the match, puffed, and nodded at MacQuigan.

"Hello, Reddy," he said in his quiet way, and fell into step with the
boy.

MacQuigan didn't answer. Bradley never spoke much, anyhow. They
crossed the tracks and started up Main Street in silence. Here, the
railroaders, in groups and twos and threes, filled the street; some
hurrying homeward; others dropping in through the swinging doors, not
infrequently located along the right of way, where gasoline lamps
flared out over the gambling hells, and the crash of tin-pan pianos,
mingled with laughter and shouting, came rolling out from the
dance