Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/297

 "It requires brains," McQueen repeated stolidly.

"It's a shame that the only man on the division that has 'em, don't know how to use 'em, then," Noonan prodded. "Who cares about your blazing old coal and what it's made of? Talk's cheap. There's no sense to it, anyhow."

"Maybe there isn't, and then again maybe there is. At any rate, there's a dollar a day for every man pulling a throttle," McQueen announced triumphantly. "I don't know yet just how much for the firemen, I haven't figured it on their schedule." Noonan pricked up his ears. "What's that you say, Mac," he demanded.

Here was McQueen's vindication. They'd laugh at his absurd, pointless theories on coal, would they? Well then, he'd show them! And it wasn't any of their business, either, how many days he'd racked his brains, puzzling out an adequate solution to the question Clarihue had flung at him! He shook two impressive fat fingers at Noonan.

"One dollar a day, every day, and the spare men proportionately, that's what! Do you get that, Noonan?"

"Rats!" said Noonan. "You'd better go into the shops for repairs. You need new stay-bolts on your dome cover!"

"Never you mind my dome cover," McQueen flung back, beginning to get exasperated. "It may need a little tinkering, but it's not ready for the scrap-heap yet, the way some are I could mention—but won't. It all goes back to what I said. It's a subject