Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/100

 into the cab. On the floor MacAloon was going through a performance that would have beggared the efforts of a writhing python, and the while he groaned and yelled.

As Spitzer watched, Burke, who was bending over MacAloon with an anxious face, suddenly reached forward and picked up a little round object that rolled from the pocket of the fireman's jumper, then another and another. Spitzer instinctively craned forward, and in so doing attracted Burke's notice for the first time. Burke's look of anxiety gave way to a grin and he held out the objects to Spitzer, just as if it wasn't Spitzer at all but an ordinary man—humor, like death, is a great leveler, but no matter, let that go. Burke held them out to Spitzer, Spitzer took them, and even Spitzer grinned. It didn't need any doctor to diagnose MacAloon's complaint and the complaint wasn't poetic! Cramps, old-fashioned, unadulterated cramps—just plain cramps and green crab-apples! Some things lay a man out worse perhaps—but there aren't many.

Burke's grin didn't last long, for at that moment came Number One's long, clear siren note, and back over the tender a streak of light shot out in a wide circle from around a butte and then danced along the rails and began to light up the platform, as the Limited thundered, five minutes late, into the straight stretch.

"Holy fishplates!" yelled Burke. "I've got to get a man to fire. Spitzer, you run like hell to the roundhouse and"

Burke stopped. Spitzer stopped him. There are