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Updated: June 7, 2025
But he answered her loudly, so that lurking robbers might overhear: "I know a great big man over there, and he's a friend of mine; he's a brakie on the M. & D., and he lets me ride in the caboose any time I want to, and he's right behind us. More conversationally: "Aw, Jiminy! Gertie, don't cry! Please don't. I'll take care of you.
Used to tell 'em that." "You talked foolish, then," burst out Lefty suddenly. "It was all straight." The brakie could hear the click of his companion's teeth at the period to this statement, as though he regretted his outburst. "Well, I'll be hanged," murmured the brakie innocently. Ordinarily, Lefty was not easily lured, but this night he apparently was in the mood for talk.
"Look here," he said, "looks to me like a queer thing that you're on this train" "Does it" queried Lefty softly "Why?" "Because Donnegan is two cars back, asleep." "The devil you say!" The brakie broke into laughter "Don't kid yourself along," he warned. "Don't do it. It ain't wise with me." "What you mean?" "Come on, Lefty. Come clean. You better do a fade off this train." "Why, you fool "
It was rather the silence of one which cannot tell whether or not it is worth while to speak than it was the silence of one who needs time for thought. "I'll tell you why, bo. It's because when I take a trail like that it only has one end I'm going to bump off the other bird or he's going to bump off me" The brakie cleared his throat
The sky line everywhere was clean; there was hardly a sign of a tree. He knew, by a little reflection, that this must be cattle country, for the brakie had intimated as much in their talk just before dusk. Now it was early night, and a wind began to rise, blowing down the valley with a keen motion and a rapidly lessening temperature, so that Donnegan saw he must get to a shelter.
"He was a man," replied Lefty Joe with an indescribable emphasis. "Huh?" "He ain't a man any more." "Get bumped off?" "No. Busted." The brakie considered this bit of news and rolled it back and forth and tried its flavor against his gossiping palate. "Did you fix him after he left you?" "No." "I see. You busted him while he was still with you.
He thought of this, but rustling against the palm of his right hand was the bill whose denomination he had read, and that figure ate into his memory, ate into his brain. After all what was Donnegan to him? What was Donnegan but a worthless tramp? Without any answer to that last monosyllabic query, the brakie hunched forward, and began to work his way up the train.
The brakie scratched his head, for the silence of the tramp convinced him that there had been, after all, a good deal of truth in the rumor. He ran back on another tack and slipped about Lefty. "I never laid much on what they said," he averred. "I know you, Lefty; you can do a lot, but when it comes to leading a whole gang, like they said you was, and all that well, I knew it was a lie.
He groaned as he remembered. "I was going fine. Nothing could of been better. I had the boys together. We was doing so well that I was riding the cushions and I went around planning the jobs. Nice, clean work. No cans tied to it. But one day I had to meet Suds down in the Meriton Jungle. You know?" "I've heard plenty," said the brakie. "Oh, it ain't so bad the Meriton. I've seen a lot worse.
The brakie had touched Lefty Joe for two dollars; he had secured fifty cents; and since the vigor of Lefty's oaths had convinced him that this was all the money the tramp had, the two now sat elbow to elbow and killed the distance with their talk. "It's like old times to have you here," said the brakie. "You used to play this line when you jumped from coast to coast."
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