“And,” continued Bunty, “he laughed, and when I asked him what he was laughing at, he gived me a piece of paper and told me to give it to you, and you’d tell me.”
Regan groaned. “Guess it’s my time all right,” he muttered. “Where’s the paper, Bunty?”
“He putted it in my pocket.”
Regan drew the chair with Bunty’s clothing on it toward him, and began a hurried search. He fished out a narrow slip of paper and unfolded it on his knee. It was a check for one thousand dollars payable to Master Bunty Regan, and signed by the President of the road.
III—“IF A MAN DIE”
East and West now, the Transcontinental is doubletracked, all except the Hill Division—and that, in the nature of things, probably never will be. If you know the mountains, you know the Hill Division. From the divisional point, Big Cloud, that snuggles at the eastern foothills, the right of way, like the trail of a great sinewy serpent, twists and curves through the mountains, through the Rockies, through the Sierras, and finally emerges to link its steel with a sister division, that stretches onward to the great blue of the Pacific Ocean.
It is a stupendous piece of track. It has cost fabulous sums, and the lives of many men; it has made the fame of some, and been the graveyard of more. The history of the world, in big things, in little things, in battles, in strife, in suddenf death, in peace, in progress, and in achievement, has its counterpart, in miniature, in the history of the Hill Division. There is a page in that history that belongs to “Angel” Breen. This is Breen’s story.
It has been written much, and said oftener, that men in every walk of life, save one, may make mistakes and live them down, but that the dispatcher who falls once is damned forever. And it is true. I am a dispatcher. I know.