Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/60

 is damned forever. And it is true. I am a dispatcher. I know.

Where he got the nickname "Angel" from, is more than I can tell you, and I've wondered at it often enough myself. Contrast, I guess it was. Contrast with the boisterous, rough and ready men around him, for this happened back in the early days when men were what a life of hardship and no comfort made them. No, Breen wasn't soft—far from it. He was just quiet and mild-mannered. It must have been that—contrast. Anyway, he was "Angel" when I first knew him, and you can draw your own conclusions as to what he is now—I'm not saying anything at all about that.

Where did he come from? What was he before he came here? I don't know. I don't believe anybody knew, or ever gave the matter a thought. That sort of question was never asked—it was too delicate and pointed in the majority of cases. A man was what he was out here, not what he had been; he made good, or he didn't. Not that I mean to imply that there was anything crooked or anything wrong with Breen's past, I'm sure there wasn't for that matter, but I'm just trying to make you understand that when I say Breen had the night trick in the dispatcher's office here in Big Cloud, I'm beginning at the beginning.

Breen wasn't popular. He wasn't a good enough mixer for that. Personally, it isn't anything I'd hold up against him, or any other man. Popularity is too often cheap, and being a "good fellow" isn't always a license for a man to puff out his chest—though