Page:Hopkinson Smith--Tom Grogan.djvu/69

. Then I started for home on the run, to get me derricks and stuff. I got home, hooked up by twelve o'clock last night, an' before daylight I had me rig up an' the fall set and the buckets over her hatches. At six o'clock this mornin' I took the teams and was a-runnin' the coal out of the chunker, when down comes Mr.—Daniel—McGaw with a gang and his big derrick on a cart.” She repeated this in a mocking tone, swinging her big shoulders exactly as her rival would have done.

“'That's me rig,' I says to him, p'intin' up to the gaff, 'an' me coal, an' I'll throw the fust man overboard who lays hands on it!' An' then the sergeant come out and took McGaw one side an' said somethin' to him, with his back to me; an' when McGaw turned he was white too, an' without sayin' a word he turned the team and druv off. An' just now I met Mr. Crane walkin' down, lookin' like he had lost a horse. 'Tom Grogan,' he says, 'I hate to disappoint ye, an' wouldn't, for ye've always done me work well; but I'm stuck on the coal contract, an' the sergeant can put me in a hole if ye do the haulin'.' An' I says, 'Brace up, Mr. Crane, there's a hole, but ye ain't in it, an'