Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/296

 He picked his way cautiously as though not quite sure of his rights and ready for a quick reverse.

"Say, Mac," he began, "what do you think of all this talk that's going 'round?"

"Talk?" said McQueen. "What talk?"

"You don't mean to say," gasped Noonan, in well-simulated surprise, "that you haven't heard it? And the boys are slinging it pretty hot, at that!"

"I haven't heard anything," McQueen answered, slightly suspicious that Noonan was about to spring one at his expense. "What you giving us?"

"Straight," confided Noonan earnestly. "It's strike, Mac, that's what."

"Strike!" ejaculated McQueen, bewildered. "What for?"

"What for!" cried Noonan. "What for? That's a sweet question to ask. Well, pretty dashed near everything,"—he waved his hand expansively—"hours, scale, and—and—"

McQueen shook his head. "I'm not kicking," he said. "I don't see anything to strike about. Looks to me as though you fellows were hunting trouble. You'll probably get it, what?"

"You never see anything," Noonan blurted out, irritation getting the better of diplomacy. "Nothing but the blamed coal you're forever yapping about."

"What I know about coal," returned McQueen with dignity, "you'll never know. It's a subject that requires brains."

"Is that so!" Noonan jeered. "You tell it!"