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Updated: June 7, 2025
I'll stake you because I like you and I don't care who knows it if you don't." "You're a brick" the gambler declared. "I don't need your money, you blessed woman. I'm 'fat'" and he waved a thousand-dollar bill at her. "I did ride into San Pasqual on a freight, but I did it from choice, an' not necessity. The brakie was an old friend o' mine an' asked me to ride in wit' him.
"Kennebec Lou, the Clipper, and Suds. Them and a lot more. They was all with me; they was all under me; I was the Main Guy!" What a ring in his voice as he said it! The beaten general speaks thus of his past triumphs. The old man remembered his youth in such a voice. The brakie was impressed; he repeated the three names. "Even Suds?" he said. "Was even Suds with you?" "Even Suds!"
"Sure," said Lefty Joe, and he scowled at the mountains on either side of the pass. The train was gathering speed, and the peaks lurched eastward in a confused, ragged procession. "And a durned hard ride it's been many a time." "Kind of queer to see you," continued the brakie. "Heard you was rising in the world."
But the story consisted of one word, flung bitterly into the rushing air. "Donnegan!" "Him?" cried the brakie, starting in his place. "Donnegan!" cried Lefty, and his voice made the word into a curse. The brakie nodded. "Them that get tangled with Donnegan don't last long. You ought to know that." At this the grief, hate, and rage in Lefty Joe were blended and caused an explosion.
Lefty Joe expertly lighted a match in spite of the roaring wind, and by this wild light the brakie read the denomination of the bill with a gasp. He rolled up his face and was in time to catch the sneer on the face of Lefty before a gust snatched away the light of the match. They had topped the highest point in Jericho Pass and now the long train dropped into the down grade with terrific speed.
He reached into his clothes and produced something which rustled in the rush of wind. He fumbled, and finally passed a scrap of the paper into the hand of the brakie. "My heavens," drawled the latter. "D'you think you can fix me with a buck for a job like this? You can't bribe me to stand around while you bump off Donnegan. Can't be done, Lefty!" "One buck, did you say?"
And that was the end of my gang. What with Kennebec Lou and Suds both gone, what chance did I have to hold the boys together?" The brakie heard this recital with the keenest interest, nodding from time to time. "What beats me, Lefty," he said at the end of the story, "is why you didn't knife into the fight yourself and take a hand with Donnegan" At this Lefty was silent.
"I don't know," said he, "but what the biggest fun in chasing round the country is to get up from a pile of lumber where you've pounded your ear all night and get that funny railroad smell of greasy waste, and then throw your feet for a hand-out and sneak on a blind and go hiking off to some town you've never heard of, with every brakie and constabule out after you. That's living!"
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