Part 2

He stood stupidly for a few moments, weaving back and forth. He aroused himself as his dull ears caught a familiar sound. A hand-car was being pumped down the grade. His mind cleared to supernormal lucidity. He saw his advantage. He had been brutally attacked and seriously wounded. The one man escaping would be charged with having stolen the money; they wrested it from him in the struggle. He had fought hard; he’d earned it. And yet, should he pull the lever close by his right hand, he could throw open the switch down the line and send Fresno Red crashing into the empty coal-cars on the siding.

“You’ll never get a better chance! It simply can’t be known and--”

“No!” he yelled, springing to the lever and pulling it back with his last ounce of strength.

“No, ---- you! No!”

Within the next minute he heard a dull crash and knew the yegg leader had collided with the coal-cars. Then he concluded the wet platform would be an ideal place for a red-hot body to rest on.

* * * * *

“For the love of Mike! Parsly down and out! One man groaning and another dead in the office, one stiff out here! Good Heavens!” exclaimed the horrified foreman as he held up the lantern. He had come because Parsly had failed to keep his promise as to the game of cribbage.

As he read the full story in the four prostrate forms he collected his wits and dragged Parsly into the office, meanwhile begging him to “Wake up,” and “Get back his nerve.”

“What’s the row?” feebly asked Parsly. Then he remembered.

“I’ve been shot. Find the instrument and see if the wires are O. K. Hold me up where I can reach it. I must send in the alarm. The leader is down on the siding somewhere. I shunted him off into the empties.”

“The desperate devils was going to make sure,” panted the foreman as he hunted for the instrument. “They fetched two coils of rope.”

The papers made a great hero of Parsly. Fresno Red, who was found with a broken shoulder, gave him a brave record for being game. The railroad sent a superintendent to tell him he was in line for promotion and the express company guardedly considered presenting him with a reward.

“I don’t want any money,” growled Parsly as the agent sat by his bed in the little house.

“Cut that out. I did nothing but what’s in the day’s work. But I’d like the Centerville job. Roberts, they say, is going to quit. That pays a hundred a month.”

He was appointed two days later. Only now he hates the sight of coiled rope and looks upon express money as so much junk.