Collins, with all
the men on the ground, grasped Casey's idea.
"By God! Casey can you do it? There's down-grade for twenty miles.
Once start this gravel-car and she'll go clear to the hills. But--
but--"
"Collins, it'll be aisy. I'll slip through thot pass loike oil. Thim
Sooz won't be watchin' this way. There's a curve. They won't hear
till too late. An' shure they don't niver obsthruct a track till the
last minute."
"But, Casey, once through the pass you can't control that gravel-
car. The brakes won't hold. You'll run square into the general's
train--wreck it!"
"Naw! I've got a couple of ties, an' if thot wreck threatens I'll
heave a tie off on the track an' derail me private car."
"Casey, it's sure death!" exclaimed Collins. His voice and the
pallor of his face and the beads of sweat all proclaimed him new to
the U. P. R.
"Me boy, nothin's shure whin yez are drillin' with the Paddies."
Casey was above surprise and beyond disdain. He was a huge, toil-
hardened, sun-reddened, hard-drinking soldier of the railroad, a
loquacious Irishman whose fixed grin denied him any gravity, a
foreman of his gang. His chief delight was to outdo his bosom
comrade, McDermott. He did not realize that he represented an
unconquerable and unquenchable spirit.
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