"Yes, and to-morrow we may have the new general manager, and then you and I and all the others will be hunting for some other railroad to work on," I retorted.
I pretty nearly had him over the edge, but I couldn't push him the rest of the way to save my life.
"If there was the least little scrap—a reason even to imagine that Mr. Norcross had gone off on that stolen eight-wheeler, it would be different, Jimmie," he protested. "But there ain't; and you know doggoned well there ain't. Let's go up-town and hunt up something to eat. You'll feel a heap clearer in your mind when you get a good square meal inside o' your clothes."
We left the shop offices together, and got shut out, crossing the yard, by a freight that was pulling in from the West. There was a yard crew shifting on the other side of the incoming train, and rather than wait for the double obstruction to clear itself, we walked down the shop track, meaning to go around the lower end of things.
This detour took us past the round-house, and when we reached the turn-table lead, the engine of the just-arrived freight came backing down the skip-track. Seeing Kirgan, the engineer swung down from the step at the lead switch, leaving the hostler to "spot" the engine on the table. I knew the engineer by sight. His name was Gorcher, and he was a reformed cow-punch'—with a record for getting out of more tight places with a heavy train than any other man on the division.
"Here's lookin' at you, Mr. Kirgan," he said, with a sort of Happy Hooligan grin on his smutty face. "You been passin' the word, quiet, among the boys to keep an eye out f'r that Atlantic-type that got lost in the shuffle, ain't you? Well, I found her."
"What's that—where?" snapped Kirgan, in a tone that made a noise like the pop of a whip-lash.
"You know that old gravel pit that digs into the hill a mile west of the old 'Y' on the Timber Mountain grade? Well, she's there; plumb at the far end o' that gravel track, cold and dead."
"When did you see her?"
"Just now—comin' in. We had to cut and double, comin' up Timber Mountain hill. 'Stead o' pullin' all the way up to the 'Y' and losin' more time, I doubled in on that old gravel track. There she was, as big as a house."