Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/114

, double-riveted variety, are of much avail against circumstances and conditions over which one has absolutely, undeniably, and emphatically no control. If Dinkelman's clothing emporium had occupied a site between the station and MacGuire's Blazing Star saloon, instead of the said Blazing Star saloon occupying that altogether inappropriate position itself, and if Spider Kelly, the conductor of the wrecked train, had not run into Shanley before he had fairly got ten yards from the super's office, things undoubtedly would have been very different. Shanley took that view of it afterward, and certainly he was justified. It is on record that he had no hand in the laying out of Big Cloud nor in the control of its real estate, rentals, or leases.

Railroad men are by no stretch of the imagination to be regarded as hero worshipers, but if a man does a decent thing they are not averse to telling him so. Shanley had done several very decent things at the wreck. Spider Kelly invited him into the Blazing Star.

Shanley demurred. "I've got to get some clothes," he explained.

"Get 'em afterward," said Kelly; "plenty of time. Come on; it's just supper-time, and there'll be a lot of the boys in there. They'll be glad to meet you. If you're hungry you'll find the best free layout on the division. There's nothing small about MacGuire."

Shanley hesitated, and, proverbially, was lost.

An intimate and particular description of the events of that night are on no account to be written. They would not have shocked, surprised, or astonished