Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/80

 "Hold Number Two. Hold Number Two"—twice the sender spelled out the words.

Then Coyote Bend repeated the order, and Breen gave back the O. K.

"Breen!" I shouted. "What are you doing? Are you crazy! What are you doing here? Speak, man, what"

He had straightened in his chair, and a sort of low, catchy gasp came from his lips. It seemed as though it took all his power, all his strength, to lift his eyes to mine. I sprang for the key, but he jerked himself suddenly forward and pushed me desperately away. And then he called me by the old name, not much above a whisper, I could hardly catch the words, and I didn't understand, didn't know, that the man before me was a wounded, dying man. My brain was whirling, full of that other night, full of the days and months that had followed. I couldn't think. I

"Charlie boy, it's all right. Black Dempsey in the Cut. I was afraid I was too late—too late. They shot—me—here"—he was tearing with his fingers at his waistcoat.

And then I understood—too late. As I reached for him, he swayed forward and toppled over, a huddled heap, over the key, over the order book, over the train sheet that once had taken his life and now had given it back to him—dead.

What is there to say? Whatever he may have done, however far he may have fallen, back of it all, through it all, bigger than himself, stronger than any other