Trouble Shooter (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

changed?"

      "Packed solid with railroad stuff. Mud hub-deep on the main street. Steamboats tied by the dozen to the docks. It's a railroad town now, Eileen."

      She said: "We should be grateful for the railroad, I suppose. It is life for all of us." She sat down opposite him, her arms resting on the table; her definite mouth was minutely stubborn and a latent unhappiness stirred the exact detail of her face. "But I shall be glad when it is finished and all this roughness is gone. Listen to those men outside."

      This windy night shouldered against the pine wall of the building, condensing the reports of Cheyenne's roaring activity. There was a teamster directly under the window, yelling at his horses caught in the muddy channel of Eddy Street. The board walk down there was a-drumming with loud feet and out of the Club saloon, the racket of the saloon's band poured interminably, laced now and then by the barkeep's strident calling: "Come over here, you rondo-coolo sports, and give us a bet!" Yonder by the depot the ringing of the switch engine's bell kept on. Somewhere the unsupported wall of a half-built house went down against the blast with a long, flat crash.

      Watching Eileen across the table, Peace realized that she hated all this raw, lusty life with an unfathomed intensity; The vitality of it warmed him like a fire—and only roused in her a hatred for its disorder. Every fiber in her body was stiffened against it. There was an insistence in her for exact ways, for gentility and sedate manners; and the louder all that outside fury became the more pronounced became the color on her cheeks.

      "It isn't bad, Eileen," he said quietly.

      She looked at him in her old way—which was cool and clear. "I know, Frank. You love it. Excitement and fighting keeps you going. You are hard. You are becoming harder."

      He had finished his meal. He took up his pipe again. He was smiling through the gray lift of tobacco smoke.

      "I like it," he admitted.

      "They have made a work horse out of you," she told him. "They have made a slave driver out of you. What do these Irishmen call you? Bucko Frank. A man that cleans up gambling dens at point of a gun and knocks workmen down with his fists."

      He said mildly: "it's the way to handle these fellows. I could go out on that street now and yell and get a hundred of them around me in five minutes—and they'd do anything I asked."

      "I hate it, Frank! Killers call you by your first name and ask you to have a drink on them. Women—" her voice turned bitter—"those women—smile at you."

      "Listen," he said carefully: "This is the greatest engineering job in the world, When it's done there'll be other roads to build. Here is where I make my way—for the next job to come."

      She made a resigned motion with her small hand. "Have breakfast with us, Frank. I haven't seen you for a month."

      He shook his head. His smile was regretting. "Reed's sending me to Fort Sanders tonight."

      "Then I won't see you for another month! It isn't right. Why can't he wait one day?" She was angry then, with the rose color filling her cheeks. "How long do I have to sit and wait?"

      He said, all at once laughing and reckless: "You're a lovely woman when you get angry." He rose and came around the table, and instantly she got out of her chair, and her hands lifted in a self-defense she couldn't forget.

      She said rapidly: "No, Frank—I don't like that!"

      But he took her by the arms and looked down, losing his humor, "What have I been thinking about in Omaha? Why do you suppose I held up a work train for an hour and came here on an empty stomach? Good God, Eileen, drop your manners for a minute! Don't be so damned stiff and scared! The waiting is just as tough on me as it is on you. But I keep thinking that the few minutes we have may be worth the waiting. A woman in love, Eileen, doesn't act like a Boston spinster in a museum. We're alive—and what are you afraid of?"

      She shook herself away, and her hand lifted and slapped him across the cheek. He didn't step away. He dropped his arms and stood there watching her, smiling once more.

      "Maybe," he said softly, "you'd be human if we fought more."

      She said, "Frank—I'm sorry." And stood rigidly in her place, on the edge of tears. "But stay over tomorrow."

      "No," he said.

      She flung her protest at him. "Who's being stubborn now? Do I take second place to the railroad?"

      He said laconically: "That's something you'll have to learn, Eileen. Never make a man choose between his job and his woman. There is a time for each, and the two things don't compare."

      She faced him, resisting him quietly with her will. "I'm not just a woman, Frank. I'm Eileen Oliver. I can't change that."

      He shrugged his shoulders and was about to answer her when somebody tapped on the room door. Eileen said, "Come in," and her hands went up automatically to her hair, arranging it.

      Ben Latimer walked into the room and stopped, and looked across at these two people with a manner that was very cool and very self-contained.

      He said, "Hello, Peace. I heard you were back." And then he bowed at Eileen, and his voice lost its distant ring. "There's four thousand Irishmen abroad and the town's wild—and I got lonely, Eileen."

      Peace said: "A logical and orderly sentiment, Ben," and stared at Latimer without expression. But a hard, violent impulse washed through him and left him inwardly a-smolder. Latimer was young. He was sound and dogged and full of nerve. Yet in the narrows of those pale gray eyes was something wholly unsentimental. It reminded Peace of old Bardee Oliver downstairs who calculated his chances so dryly, so smartly. Latimer was of that same disposition, avoiding enthusiasm, and thereby making his profitable way.

      "Just so," agreed Latimer imperturbably. "Well, I guess we start another year. You'll be interested to know I took contract on ten miles of fill the other side of Laramie. I got twenty teams and fifty men going now."

      "You progress," drawled Peace.

      "I guess I do," agreed Latimer. "One year ago I swung a shovel at two and a half a day. I don't want to be breakin' in here, though."

      "Sit down, Ben," said Eileen. A coolness and a serenity had returned to her. She said to Peace: "When will you be back?"

      Peace took his hat and walked to the doorway. He kicked his unruly temper into its proper place and spoke idly: "Not sure. Good night, Eileen."

      But she followed him and swung the door after her—and the two were in the semidarkness of the landing. Her hand brushed his sleeve softly; her voice was a quiet, urgent whisper. "When will you be back, Frank? How long do I wait now?"

      He said irritably: "Wait for what? Another argument? Go back and entertain Ben by reciting the table of compound interest. It is a safe topic and you'll enjoy it."

      "Frank!" Her hand held him and the faint perfume of her hair was a strong call in these shadows. He reached down abruptly and kissed her again, and hoped for an answer. There was a yielding of her body, yet even then he felt a remote resistance. She was giving him a concession, she was trying to please him—but it was no more than that. She couldn't break through her will; she couldn't be generous in the way of a woman in love. It struck him hard. He left her there and went down the stairs.

      Bardee Oliver sat on his counter, waiting for trade. Bardee said:

      "Got a raise yet, Frank?"

      "Haven't asked."

      Oliver looked at him out of eyes surrounded by a net of shrewd wrinkles. "Never get more if you don't ask. You been doing the company's dirty work. Goin' to do more, according to rumors. Better figure for yourself and lay by—like Ben there. Ben's smart enough to know the bonanza don't last forever. You should be."

      Peace only nodded. He entered the brawling, wind-choked street and tramped toward the depot with his head lowered. Somebody in the western edge of this formless, disorderly town was firing a gun; and the monotonous pumping of the Club's orchestra kept going on and on. By impulse he cut across the mud, ducking past