1
The fifty empty freights danced and rolled and rattled
on the rough road bed and filled Jericho Pass with
thunder; the big engine was laboring and grunting
at the grade, but five cars back the noise of the
locomotive was lost. Yet there is a way to talk
above the noise of a freight train just as there is
a way to whistle into the teeth of a stiff wind.
This freight-car talk is pitched just above the ordinary
tone—it is an overtone of conversation,
one might say—and it is distinctly nasal.
The brakie could talk above the racket, and so, of
course, could Lefty Joe. They sat about in the
center of the train, on the forward end of one of
the cars. No matter how the train lurched and
staggered over that fearful road bed, these two swayed
in their places as easily and as safely as birds on
swinging perches. The brakie had touched Lefty
Joe for two dollars; he had secured fifty cents; and
since the vigor of Lefty’s oaths had convinced
him that this was all the money the tramp had, the
two now sat elbow to elbow and killed the distance
with their talk.
“It’s like old times to have you here,”
said the brakie. “You used to play this
line when you jumped from coast to coast.”
“Sure,” said Lefty Joe, and he scowled
at the mountains on either side of the pass.
The train was gathering speed, and the peaks lurched
eastward in a confused, ragged procession. “And
a durned hard ride it’s been many a time.”
“Kind of queer to see you,” continued
the brakie. “Heard you was rising in the
world.”
He caught the face of the other with a rapid side
glance, but Lefty Joe was sufficiently concealed by
the dark.
“Heard you were the main guy with a whole crowd
behind you,” went on the brakie.
“Yeh?”
“Sure. Heard you was riding the cushions,
and all that.”
“Yeh?”
“But I guess it was all bunk; here you are back
again, anyway.”
“Yep,” agreed Lefty.
The brakie scratched his head, for the silence of
the tramp convinced him that there had been, after
all, a good deal of truth in the rumor. He ran
back on another tack and slipped about Lefty.
“I never laid much on what they said,”
he averred. “I know you, Lefty; you can
do a lot, but when it comes to leading a whole gang,
like they said you was, and all that—well,
I knew it was a lie. Used to tell ’em that.”
“You talked foolish, then,” burst out
Lefty suddenly. “It was all straight.”
The brakie could hear the click of his companion’s
teeth at the period to this statement, as though he
regretted his outburst.
“Well, I’ll be hanged,” murmured
the brakie innocently.
Ordinarily, Lefty was not easily lured, but this night
he apparently was in the mood for talk.
“Kennebec Lou, the Clipper, and Suds. Them
and a lot more. They was all with me; they was
all under me; I was the Main Guy!”
