Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/185

 "What I could," said Dahleen, with terse finality.

Carleton sprang to his feet, and his fist crashed down upon the desk.

"You are lying!" he thundered. "That wreck and the lives that are lost are at your door, and if I could prove it!"—he shook his fist at the fireman. "As it is I can only fire you for violation of the rules. I thought at first it was Coogan and that he'd gone off his head a bit, and you are cur enough to let the blame go there if you could, to let me and every other man think so!"

Dahleen's fists clenched, and he took a step forward.

"That's enough!" he cried hoarsely. "Enough from you or any other man!"

Carleton rounded on him more furiously than before.

"I've given you a chance to tell a straight story and you wouldn't. God knows what you did that night. I believe you were fighting drunk. I believe that gash in Coogan's head wasn't from the wreck. If I knew I'd fix you." He wrenched open a drawer of his desk, whipped out a metal whisky flask, and shook it before Dahleen's eyes. "When you were picked up this was in the pocket of your jumper!"

The color fled from Dahleen's face leaving it whiter than when he had entered the room. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. All the bluster, all the fight was gone. He stared mutely, a startled, frightened look in his eyes, at the damning evidence in the super's hand.

"Forgotten about it, had you?" Carleton flung out grimly. "Well, have you anything to say?"