Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/121

 "If I'm never fired for anything but that," exclaimed Shanley in a burst of fervent emotion, "I've got a job for life. I'll prove it to you, Mr. Carleton. I'm going to make good. You see if I don't."

"Very well," said Carleton. "I hope you will. That's all, Shanley. I'll let McCann know you're coming."

Shanley's second exit from the super's presence was different from the first. He walked out with a firm tread and squared shoulders. He was rejuvenated and buoyant. He was on his mettle—quite another matter, entirely another matter, and distinctly apart from the paltry consideration of a mere job. He had told Carleton that he would make good. Well, he would—and he did. Carleton himself said so, and Carleton wasn't in the habit of making many breaks when it came to sizing up a man—not many. He did sometimes, but not often.

Shanley did not take the other side of the street on the way to Dinkelman's—by no means. He deliberately passed as close to the Blazing Star saloon as he could, passed with contemptuous disregard, passed boastfully in the knowledge of his own strength. A sixteen-hundred class engine with her four pairs of forty-six-inch drivers can pull countless cars up a mountain grade steep enough to make one dizzy, but Shanley would have backed himself to win against her in a tug of war over the scant few inches that separated him from MacGuire's dispensary as he brushed by. None of MacGuire's for him. Not at all. Red-headed, freckle-faced, barked-knuckled,