Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/157

 "Who in the double-blanked blazes let you out of Big Cloud, h'm? I'll have some"

"Let's get in out of the wet," broke in Keating, smiling through a spell of coughing that racked him at that moment. "You can growl your head off then, if you like"—and he started on a run for the shack.

Once inside, Spirlaw rounded on the boy again, and he stopped only when he was out of breath.

"Didn't Carleton tell you to stay where you was?" he finished bitterly.

"Oh yes," said Keating, "that's about the first thing he did say after he had read your letter, when I gave it to him yesterday. Then I tumbled to why you had sent me out of camp. You're about as square as they make them, Spirlaw. You needn't blame Carleton, he had about all he could do without paying any attention to me or any one else. Had any wires or news in here?"

Spirlaw shook his head.

"No; but I knew something was up, because Number Eleven is the first train in or out to-day. The express messenger just said they'd cut loose in Big Cloud and wrecked about everything in sight, but I guess he was puttin' it on a bit."

"He didn't put on anything," said Keating slowly. "My God, Spirlaw, it was an awful night! The freight-house and the shops and the roundhouse, what's left of them, are ashes. They cut all the wires and then they cut loose themselves—the Polacks and that crowd, you know. Yes, they wrecked everything in sight, and there's a dozen lives gone out to pay for