Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/153

 away, Spirlaw watched him out of sight—and the hint of a smile played over the lips of the road boss. He pulled a report sheet from his pocket, and on the back of it scrawled laboriously a letter to the superintendent of the Hill Division. It wasn't a very long letter even with the P. S. included. His smile hardened as he read it over.

"Supt., Big Cloud," it ran. "Dear Sir:—Replying to yours 8th inst, please send a couple of good ·45s, and plenty of stuffing. ('Plenty of stuffing' was heavily underscored.) Yrs. Resp., H. Spirlaw. P.S. Keep the boy up there out of this." (The P. S. was even more heavily underscored than the other.)

Wise and learned in the ways of men—and Polacks—was Spirlaw. Spirlaw was not dealing with the possibility of trouble—it was simply a question of how long it would be before it started. He folded the letter, sealed it in one of the company's manilas, and, as he watched Number Twelve disappear around the bend steaming east for Big Cloud with Keating aboard her and the epistle reposing in Keating's pocket, he stretched out his arms that were big as derrick booms and drew in a long breath like a man from whose shoulders has dropped a heavy load.

That day Spirlaw talked from his heart to the men, and they listened in sullen, stupid silence, leaning on their picks and shovels.

"You know me," he snapped, and his eyes starting at the right of the group rested for a bare second on each individual face as they swept down the line. "You know me. You've been actin' like sulky dogs