hands
of little Doctor McTurk.

McTurk was scientific from the soles of his feet up, and earnestly
professional all the rest of the way. When McGrew began to get a
glimmering of intelligence again, McTurk went at him red-headed.

"Your heart's bad," the little doctor flung at McGrew, and there was no
fooling in his voice. "So's your liver--cirrhosis. But mostly your
heart. You'll try this just once too often--and you'll go out like a
collapsed balloon, out like the snuffing of a candle wick."

McGrew blinked at him.

"I've heard that before," said he indifferently.

"Indeed!" snapped the irascible little doctor.

"Yes," said McGrew, "quite a few times. This ain't my maiden trip.
You fellows make me tired! I'm a pretty good man yet, ain't I? And
I'm likely to be when you're dead. I've got my job to worry about now,
and that's enough to worry about. Got any idea of what Carleton's said
about it?"

"You keep this up," said McTurk sharply, refusing to sidestep the
point, as, bag in hand, he moved toward the door, "and it won't
interest you much what Carleton or anybody else says--mark my words, my
man."

It was Tommy Regan, fat-paunched, big-hearted, good-natured, who
stepped into the breach. There was only one place on this wide earth
in Carleton's eyes for a railroad man who drank when he should have
been on duty--and that was a six-foot trench, three feet deep. In
Carleton's mind, from the moment he heard of it, McGrew was out. But
Regan saved McGrew; and the matter was settled, as many a matter had
been settled before, over the nightly game of pedro between the
superintendent and the master mechanic, upstairs in the super's office
over the station. Incidentally, they played pedro because there wasn't
anything else to do nights--Big Cloud in those days wasn't boasting a
grand-opera house, and the "movies" were still things of the future.

"He's a pretty rough case, I guess; but give him a chance," said Regan.

"A chance!" exclaimed Carleton, with a hard smile. "Give a despatcher
who drinks a chance--to send a trainload or two of souls into eternity,
and about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of rolling stock to the
junk heap while he's boozing over the key!"

"No," said Regan. "A chance--to make good."

Carleton laid down his hand, and stared across the table at the master
mechanic.

"Go on, Tommy," he prompted grimly. "What's the answer?"

"Well," said Regan, "he's a past master on the