t Mrs. MacQuigan's board money,
that they never got away from, him. Mrs. MacQuigan got that as
regularly now that she didn't need it with Reddy to look after her as
she had when she was practically dependent upon Bradley for it all.

Silent, grim, taciturn always, more so now than ever, Bradley went his
way; indifferent to Regan when Regan buttonholed him; indifferent to
Thornley and his threats of dismissal, meant to jerk Bradley into the
straight; indifferent to every mortal thing on earth. And the Hill
Division, with Regan leading, shook its head. There wasn't a man but
knew the story, and, big under the greasy jumpers and the oil-soaked
shirts, they never judged him; but Bradley's eyes held no invitation
for companionship, so they left him pretty much alone.

"I dunno," said Regan, tugging at his mustache, twiddling with his
thumbs over his paunch, "I dunno--looks like the scrap heap at the end
of the run--h'm? I dunno."

But Mrs. MacQuigan said no.

"Wait," said she, with her patient smile. "It's me that knows Martin.
It's a sore, hurt heart the boy has now; but you wait and see--I'll win
him through. It's proud yet you'll be to take your hats off to Martin
Bradley!"

Martin Bradley--a game man--that's what they call him now. Mrs.
MacQuigan was right--wasn't she? Not perhaps just in the way she
thought she was--but right for all that. Call it luck or chance if you
like, something more than that if it strikes you that way--but an
accident in the yards one night, a month after Bradley had lost his
engine, put one of the train crew of the Rat River Special out of
commission with a torn hand, and sent a call boy streaking uptown for a
substitute. Call it luck if you like, that the work train with a
hybrid gang of a hundred-odd Polacks, Armenians, and Swedes, cooped up
in a string of box cars converted into bunk houses, mess houses and
commissariat, a window or two in them to take the curse off, and end
doors connecting them for the sake of sociability, pulled out for the
new Rat River trestle work with Reddy MacQuigan handling the shovel end
of it for Bull Coussirat, who had been promoted in the cab--and Bradley
as the substitute brakeman on the front end. Well, maybe it was
luck--but that's not what they call it on the Hill Division.

Perhaps no one quite understood Bradley, even at the end, except Mrs.
MacQuigan; and possibly even she didn't get it all. Inconsistent, to
put it mildly, that a man li