Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/219

 stood a little apart in front of the crowd and just behind the nozzle end of one of the streams. Again he measured the chances, and again he shook his head.

"I can't ask a man to do it," he muttered; "but we ought to have a stream up there, it's"

"Why don't you take it there yourself, then?"—the words came sharp and quick from his elbow, stinging hot like the cut of a whip-lash. It was "King" Gilleen, red-haired, blue-blooded, freckled-skinned Gilleen.

The master mechanic whirled like a shot, and for a minute the two men stared into each other's eyes, stared as the leaping flames sent flickering shadows across the grim, set features of them both, stared at each other face to face for the first time since that noon in the roundhouse days before.

"Why don't you take it there yourself, then?" said Gilleen again, and his laugh rang hard and cold. "You ain't a quitter, are you? There's nothin' wrong with your blood, is there? If you're not afraid—come on!"—as he spoke he stepped forward, pushed the men from the nozzle—and looked back at the master mechanic.

Regan's lips were like a thin, white line.

Gilleen laughed out again, and it carried over the roar and the crackle of the flames, the snapping timbers, the hiss and spit of the water, the voices of the crowd.

"Put up the ladder!"—it was Regan's voice, deadly cold. "Lash a short end around that nozzle, an' stand