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Gridley's all right. We mustn't forget that his department, thus far, is the only one that hasn't given us trouble and doesn't seem likely to give us trouble. I wish I could say as much for the force here in the Crows' Nest." "With a single exception, you can to-day," said McCloskey quickly. "I've cleaned house.
A few weeks subsequent to the events we have just written, we find Mr. Stevens seated in his dingy office in company with the McCloskey, who had recently been discharged from custody in default of sufficient evidence being found to warrant his committal for trial. He was sitting with his feet upon the stove, and was smoking a cigar in the most free-and-easy manner imaginable.
McCloskey did not resent the familiarity of the Christian name, neither did he hold out any hope of reinstatement. "No, John. One or two things I've learned about Mr. Lidgerwood: he doesn't often hit when he's mad, and he doesn't take back anything he says in cold blood. I'm afraid you've cooked your last goose." "Let me go in and see him. He ain't half as hard-hearted as you are, Jim."
McCloskey went on, industriously drawing lines in the sand, and Lidgerwood sat on a cross-tie end and conned his lesson. Below the siding the big crane was heaving the derailed cars into line with methodical precision, but now it was Gridley's shop foreman who was giving the orders.
Stevens would carry out his expressed intention; and the reflections thereby engendered by no means added to the comfort or sense of security that McCloskey had flattered himself he was in future to enjoy; he, therefore, began to discover the bad policy of offending one who might prove so formidable an enemy of incensing one who had it in his power to retaliate by such terrible measures.
"Well, I'm mighty glad to see that he didn't get you. What was the row?" "I don't know, definitely; I suppose it was because I told McCloskey to discharge his brother a while back. The brother has been hanging about town and making threats ever since he was dropped from the pay-rolls, but no one has paid any attention to him."
"By littles, yes, but not in quantity," pursued Lidgerwood. "'Mony a little makes a mickle, as my old grandfather used to say," McCloskey went on. "If everybody gets his fingers into the sugar-bowl " Lidgerwood swung his chair to face McCloskey. "We'll pass up the petty thieveries, for the present, and look a little higher," he said gravely.
"Goodloe reports it from Little Butte; says both enginemen are in the mix-up, but he doesn't know whether they are killed or not." "There you are!" snarled McCloskey, wheeling upon Lidgerwood. "They couldn't let you get your chair warmed the first day!"
Lidgerwood's conductor was coming down the platform of the Crow's Nest with his orders in his hand, and McCloskey made ready to swing off. "I can reach you care of Mr. Leckhard, at Copah, I suppose?" he asked. "Yes. I shall be back some time to-morrow; in the meantime there is nothing to do but to sit tight in the boat. Use my private code if you want to wire me.
But he is going to stop at Angels and go over to his copper mine, which means that he will camp right down in the midst of the mix-up. I'd cheerfully give a year's salary to have him stay away a few weeks longer." McCloskey was not a swearing man in the Red Desert sense of the term, but now his comment was an explosive exclamation naming the conventional place of future punishment.
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