p. He's got to go through the back shop 'efore the old man'll
ever let him into the roundhouse. I set his packin' out and put him in a
stall at the Gray's corral; hope he'll brace up. Dock's a mighty good
workin' scrap, if you could only get him to carryin' his water right; if
he'd come down to three gauges he'd be a dandy, but this tryin' to run
first section with a flutter in the stack all the time is no good--he
must 'a flagged in."

Which, being translated into English, would carry the information that
Gun had seen one of the old ex-engineers at Bob Slattery's saloon, had
stopped and greeted him. Dock looked as if he had tramped, had drank,
was dirty, coat had holes, soles of his boots badly worn, wheezing,
seemed hungry and lifeless, been eating poor food, and was in a general
run-down condition. Gun had "set out his packing" by feeding him and put
him in a bed at the Grand Central Hotel--nicknamed the "Grayback's
Corral." Gun thought he would have to reform, before the M. M. put him
into active service. He was a good engineer, but drank too much, and
lastly, he was in so bad a condition he could not get himself into
headquarters unless someone helped him by "flagging" for him.

Gun was a bachelor; he came to us from the Pacific side, and told me
once that he first went west on account of a woman, but--begging Mr.
Kipling's pardon--that's another story.

"I don't think I'd care to double-crew my mill," Gun would say when the
conversation turned to matrimony. "I've been raised to keep your own
engine and take care of it, and pull what you could. In double-heading
there's always a row as to who ought to go ahead and enjoy the scenery
or stay behind and eat cinders."

I knew from the first that Gun had a story to tell, if he'd only give it
up, and I fear I often led up to it, with the hope that he would tell it
to me--but he never did.

My big friend sent a sum of money away every month, I supposed to some
relative, until one day I picked up from the floor a folded paper dirty
from having been carried long in Gun's pocket, and found a receipt. It
read:

"MISSION, SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 1, 1878.
"Received of O. Gunderson, for Mabel Rogers, $40.00.
"SISTER THERESA."

Ah, a little girl in the story! I thought; it's a sad story, then.
There's nothing so pure and beautiful and sweet and joyous as a little
girl, yet when a little girl has a story it's almost always a sad story.

I gave Gun the paper; he