The stationmaster chuckled. "Well, young fellow," he observed, "it is evidently to my advantage to put you on your way. Turn around, pick up your bag, go right down those steps to the road and walk straight ahead. You are now facing west. When you get into the road you will find it not so dark as it seems."
"Dark enough, I guess," muttered Hiram.
"You can't miss the road even on a dark night, for there is no fork in it till after you pass Sunnyside."
"But," asked the youth, "is there anybody up that way who will lodge me for the night, as the Sunnyside house is burned?"
"You may get taken in at Miss Delia Pringle's, just beyond Sunnyside—first house after you pass the ruins of the burned farmhouse. This station is named after her folks. Don't make the mistake of going to the first house this side of Sunnyside."
He said this last so curiously that Hiram asked him: "Why not?"
"Because that is Yancey Battick's place. He'll likely blow a charge of rock salt into you from his shotgun and then ask what you want afterward."
"Why, what's his idea?" asked Hiram much amazed.
"Says he's afraid of rats—that's all," declared the stationmaster, and immediately slammed down the window to shut out the searching February wind.
The youth hesitated for only a moment longer. He rather thought the stationmaster of Pringleton was quite as odd as the man he called Yancey Battick, who met all visitors with a salt-loaded shotgun and was afraid of rats.