Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/107

 bite of the brake-shoes, then a blinding light before his eyes as the rod caught him and he pitched, senseless, half out through the front window of the cab, head down on the running-board.

The last word is a woman's—it is her inalienable right. Said Merla to Regan with a world of suggestion in the cadence of her voice, when Spitzer was getting well enough to think about going to work again:

"I ban love Spitzer."

"Well," said Regan, squinting at her round, steadfast, blue eyes, "there ain't anything I know of to keep you waiting. He can name any run he wants. And then, the wonder of it being still heavy upon him, he exclaimed with the air of one invoking the universe: "Now, wouldn't that get you! What do you think, h'm?"

All English to Merla was literal.

"Him ban goot mans, I tank," she said.