_ Dan Moran had not applied for re-employment when the strike was off, but chose rather to look for work elsewhere, and he had looked long and faithfully, and found no place. First of all he had gone west, away to the coast, but with no success. Then he swung around the southern route, up the Atlantic coast and home again. Three years,--one year with the strikers,--four years in all of idleness, and he was discouraged. "It's the curse of the prison," he used to say to his most intimate friends; "the damp of that dungeon clings to me like a plague. It's a blight from which I can't escape. Every one seems to know that I was arrested as a dynamiter, and even my old friends shun me."
He had been saying something like that to Patsy Daly the very day he returned to Chicago. They were walking down through the yards, for Patsy, who was close to the officials, had insisted upon going personally to the master-mechanic, and interceding for the old engineer who had carried him thousands of miles while the world slept, and the wild storm raged around them. Patsy had been telling the old engineer the news of the road, but was surprised that Moran should seem to know all that had taken place, the changes and promotions, the vast improvements that had been made by the company, and the rapidly growing traffic. Patsy stopped short, and looking his companion in the eye, began to laugh.
"Now what in thunder are you laughing at?" asked Moran.
"At Patsy Daly, the luny," said the conductor (Patsy had been promoted); "why, of course you know everything. I've been rooming at the house, and I remember now that
she always knew just where you were at all times. Ah! ye sly old rogue--"
"Patsy," said Moran, seriously, putting up his hand as a signal for silence.
"That's all right, old man. She deserves a decent husband, but it'll be something new to her. Say, Dan, a fool has less sense than anybody, an' Patsy Daly's a fool. Here have I been at the point of making love to her myself, and only her tears and that big boy of hers have kept me from it. And all the time I thought she was wastin' water on that blatherskite of a Cowels, but I think better of her now."
"And why should she weep for any one else?" asked the old engineer.
"And why shouldn't she weep for you, Dannie? wandering up and down the earth, homeless and alone. Why I remember now. She would cry in her coffee at the mention of your name. And Dan, she's growin' prettier every day, and she's that gentle and--"
Just then the wild scream of a yard engine close behind them caused them to step aside.
"Wope!" cried a switchman, bang bang went the bell--"Look out there," yelled Patsy, for as the two pedestrians looked back they saw a drunken man reel out from among the cars. The driver of the switch-engine saw the man as the engine struck him, and, reversing, came to a quick stop and leaped to the ground.
The man lay with his lower limbs beneath the machine, and a blind driver (those broad wheels that have no flanges) resting on the pit of his stomach, holding him to the rail. The young engineer, having taken in the situation, leaped upon his engine, and was about to back off when Moran signalled him to stand still. "Don't move," said the old engineer, "he may want to say a word before he dies, and if you move that wheel he will be dead."
"Why, hello Greene, old hoss; is this you?" asked Moran, lifting the head of the unfortunate man and pushing the unkept hair back from his forehead.
Greene opened his eyes slowly, looked at his questioner, glanced all about and, as Moran lifted his head, gazed at the great wheel that had almost cut his body into two pieces. He was perfectly sober now, and asked why they didn't back up and look him over.
"We shall presently," said Moran, "only we were afraid we might hurt you. You are not in any pain now, are you?"
"No," said the man, "I don't know when I've felt more comfortable; but for all that I guess I'm clean cut in two, ain't I, Dan?"
"Oh no, not so bad as that."
"Oh yes, I guess there's no use holdin' out on me. Is the foreman here?"
"Yes, here I am, Billy."
"Billy!" said Greene, "now wouldn't that drive you to cigarettes? Billy!--why don't you call me drunken Bill? I'm used to that."
"Well, what is it, old man?" asked the foreman, bending down.
"You know this man? This is Dan Moran, the dynamiter." And the foreman of the round-house, recognizing the old engineer for the first time, held out his hand, partly to show to Moran and others that the strike was off, and partly to please the dying man.
"That's right," said Greene to the foreman, "it'll be good for you to touch an honest hand."
By this time a great crowd had gathered about the engine. Some police officers pushed in and ordered the engineer to "back away."
"An' what's it
to ye?" asked Greene with contempt, for he hated the very buttons of a policeman. "It's no funeral uf yours. Ye won't grudge me a few moments with me friend, will ye? Move on ye tarrier."
The big policeman glanced about and recognizing the foreman asked why the devil he didn't "git th' felly out?"
Now a red-haired woman came to the edge of the crowd, put her bucket and scrubbing brush down, and asked what had happened.
"Drunk man under the engine," said one of the curious, snappishly. The woman knew that Greene had passed out that way only a few moments ago. She had given him a quarter and he had promised not to come back to her again, and now she put her head down and ploughed through the crowd like a football player.
"Hello Mag," said Greene, as the woman threw herself upon her knees beside him. "Here's yer money--I won't get to spend it," and he opened his clinched fist and there was the piece of silver that she had given him.
The big policeman now renewed his request to have the man taken out, but the foreman whispered something to him. "Oh! begorry, is that so? All right, all right," said the officer.
"Am I delayin' traffic?" asked Greene of the foreman. "It takes a little time to die ye know, but ye only have to do it onct."
"Have ye's anythin' to say?" asked the officer.
"Yes," said Greene, for his hatred for a policeman stayed with him to the end, "ye can do me a favor."
"An' phot is it?"
"Jist keep your nose out of this business, an' don't speak to me again till after I'm dead. Do ye mind that, ye big duffer?"
It was the first time in all his life when he could say what was on his mind to a policeman without the dread of being arrested.
"Come closer, Mag--whisper, Dan. Here, you," said Greene to the foreman, and that official bent down to catch the words which were growing fainter every moment. "I'm goin' to die. Ye mind the time ye kicked me out at the round-house? Well, ye don't need to say; I mind, an' that's sufficient. I swore to git even with the Burlington for that. I hated George Cowels because he married a woman that was too good fur 'im,--she was too good for me, for that matter. Well, when he went back on the Brotherhood and took his old engineer's job I went to this man Moran and offered to blow the engine up, and he put me out of his room. I then put the dynamite on the engine myself an' Moran followed me and took it off, and saved Cowels's life, prevented me from becoming a murderer, and went to jail. Good-by, Mag. Give me your hand Dan, old man. Back up."
The old engineer nodded to the foreman, who signalled the man on the engine, and the great wheel moved from above the body. More than one man turned his back to the machine. The woman fainted. Moran had covered the eyes of the unfortunate man with his hand, and now when he removed it slowly the man's eyes were still closed. He never moved a finger nor uttered a sound. It was as if he had suddenly fallen asleep. _