It was Tommy Regan, fat-paunched, big-hearted, good-natured, who stepped into the breach. There was only one place on this wide earth in Carleton's eyes for a railroad man who drank when he should have been on duty--and that was a six-foot trench, three feet deep. In Carleton's mind, from the moment he heard of it, McGrew was out. But Regan saved McGrew; and the matter was settled, as many a matter had been settled before, over the nightly game of pedro between the superintendent and the master mechanic, upstairs in the super's office over the station. Incidentally, they played pedro because there wasn't anything else to do nights--Big Cloud in those days wasn't boasting a grand-opera house, and the "movies" were still things of the future. "He's a pretty rough case, I guess; but give him a chance," said Regan. "A chance!" exclaimed Carleton, with a hard smile. "Give a despatcher who drinks a chance--to send a trainload or two of souls into eternity, and about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of rolling stock to the junk heap while he's boozing over the key!" "No," said Regan. "A chance--to make good." Carleton laid down his hand, and stared across the table at the master mechanic. "Go on, Tommy," he prompted grimly. "What's the answer?" "Well," said Regan, "he's a past master on the key, we know that--that counts for something. What's the matter with sending him somewhere up the line where he can't get a drink if he goes to blazes for it? It might make a man of him, and save the company a good operator at the same time--we're not long on operators." "H'm!" observed Carleton, with a wry grin, picking up his cards again one by one. "I suppose you've some such place as Angel Forks, for instance, in mind, Tommy?" "Yes," said Regan. "I was thinking _of_ Angel Forks." "I'd rather be fired," submitted Carleton dryly. "Well," demanded Regan, "what do you say? Can he have it?" "Oh, yes," agreed Carleton, smiling. "He can have _that_--after I've talked to him. We're pretty short of operators, as you say. Perhaps it will work out. It will as long as he sticks, I guess--if he'll take it at all." "He'll take it," said Regan, "and be glad to get it. What do you bid?" McGrew had been at Angel Forks--night man there--for perhaps the matter of a month, when the Kid came to Big Cloud fresh from a key on the Penn. They called him the Kid because he looked it--he wasn't past the stage of where he had to shave more than once a week. The Kid, they dubbed him on the spot, but his name was Charlie Keene; a thin, wiry little chap, with black hair and a bright, snappy, quick look in his eyes and face. He was pretty good on the key, too; not a master like McGrew, he hadn't had the experience, but pretty good for all that--he could "send" with the best of them, and there wasn't much to complain about in his "taking," either.