"I didn't hound them. I ran into Suds by accident. We had trouble. Then
Levine. Then Kennebec Lou tried to take a fall out of me."

A note of whimsical protest crept into the voice of Donnegan.

"Somehow there's always a fight wherever I go," he said. "Fights just
sort of grow up around me."

Lefty Joe snarled.

"You didn't mean nothing by just 'happening' to run into three of my
boys one after another?"

"Not a thing."

Lefty rocked himself back and forth in an ecstasy of impatience.

"Why don't you stay put?" he complained. "Why don't you stake out your
own ground and stay put in it? You cut in on every guy's territory.
There ain't any privacy any more since you hit the road. What you got? A
roving commission?"

Donnegan waited for a moment before he answered. And when he spoke his
voice had altered. Indeed, he had remarkable ability to pitch his voice
into the roar of the freight train, and above or beneath it, and give it
a quality such as he pleased.

"I'm following a trail, but not yours," he admitted at length. "I'm
following a trail. I've been at it these two years and nothing has
come of it."