Of course it was somebody's gain. When the heads of our passenger conductors began to drop, they began setting up freight men. Rocksby had resigned a year earlier, and Haverly, his successor, an ex-despatcher and as big a knave as there was on the pay roll, let the men out right and left with the sole idea of saving his own scalp. By the time I was put up to a passenger train the old force was pretty much cleared out except Dave.
Every day almost, we looked to see him go. Everybody loved him because he was a master railroad man, and everybody except Dave himself was apprehensive about his future. He moved on just the same, calm and cold as ice-water, taking the same old chances, reckless of everything and everybody. I never knew till afterward, but the truth was Haverly with all his bluff talk was just enough afraid of Dave Hawk to want to let him alone. The matter, though, focused one day up in the old office in an unexpected way.
Haverly's own seat got so hot that bedeviled by his fears of losing it and afraid to discharge Dave, who now sailed up and down the line reckless as any pirate of the Spanish Main, he cowered, called Dave into the little room at the Wickiup and asked him to resign. In all the storm that raged on the division the old conductor alone had remained calm. Every day it was somebody's head off; every night a new alarm; Dave alone ignored it all. He was, through it all, the shining mark, the daredevil target; yet he bore a charmed life and survived every last associate. Then Haverly asked him to resign. Dave, bitter angry, faced him with black words in his throat.
"It's come to a showdown," muttered the superintendent uneasily after a minute's talking. "Do you want to resign?"
Dave eyed the mountains coldly. "No."
"You'll have to—"
"Have to?" Hawk whirled dark as a storm. "Have to? Who says so?"
The superintendent shifted the paperweight on the desk uncomfortably.
"Why should I resign?" demanded the old conductor angrily. "Resign?" He rose from his chair. "You know I'm a thief. You're a thief yourself. You helped make me one. I've carried more men for you than for anybody else on the whole division. I don't resign for anybody. Discharge me, damn you. I don't ask any odds of you."
Haverly met it sullenly, yet he didn't dare do anything. He knew Dave could ruin him any day he chose to open his mouth. What he did not know was that Dave Hawk was molded in a class of men different from his own. Even dishonor was safe in the hands of Dave Hawk.