'
"Talk was useless, and in the end the Kid and I quit and got our time.
"That evening the Kid came to my room and begged me to take my job back
and he would go home; but I wouldn't do it, and asked him if he was sick
of me.
"'No, Jim,' said he. 'I live in fear that something will happen to
separate us, but I don't want to be a drag on you--I think more of you
than anybody.'
"They were buying engines by the hundred on the Rio Grande and Santa Fe
and the A. & P. in those days, and the Kid and I struck out for the
West, and inside of thirty days we were at work again.
"We had been there three months, I guess, when I got orders to take a
new engine out to the front and leave her, bringing back an old one. The
last station on the road was in a box-car, thrown out beside the track
on a couple of rails. There was one large, rough-board house, where they
served rough-and-ready grub and let rooms. The latter were stalls, the
partitions being only about seven feet high. It was cold and bleak, but
right glad we were to get there and get a warm supper. Everything was
rough, but the Kid seemed to enjoy the novelty.
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