“All right,” he said, “but take my advice and go out and put your head under the pump. You need it. The way you sent that message reminds me of a man going down the street so drunk that the only way he can walk straight is to watch every step he takes.”
Nevins reddened again and growled unintelligibly.
As for Allan, he caught up his lunch-basket and hurried out of the office, sorry that he had overheard the reprimand, but scarcely able to suppress his laughter at the aptness of it. For Nevins had sent the message in just that slow, painful, dignified way.
The accommodation stopped at the junction a few minutes later, and he swung aboard and settled into a seat. As the train started, some unaccountable impulse caused him to lean toward the window and look back at the little shanty. A man was just entering the door. Allan caught but a glimpse of him, and yet it seemed to him in that instant that he recognized the slouching figure of Dan Nolan.
He sank back into his seat strangely troubled. Could it, indeed, be Nolan? Was he hanging about the place for some sinister purpose? Then he thrust the thought away. It could not have been Nolan. That worthy was by this time many miles away, on the road to Parkersburg, in search of a chance to make an honest living.
When Allan stepped upon the platform of the Wadsworth station that evening, lunch-basket in hand, to take the train back to Byers, he was surprised to find Jack Welsh there awaiting him.
“I didn’t want t’ go home early agin,” Jack explained. “Mary ’d scent somethin’ wrong and ’d git th’ whole story out o’ me. I don’t want her t’ be worrited about this business.”
“About what business?” asked Allan.
“Oh, you know well enough. About Dan Nolan. He was here yistidday arternoon. Some o’ th’ boys seen him over t’ James’s saloon. Jem Tuttle says he seen him jump on second ninety-eight. I thought mebbe he might ’a’ gone t’ Byers.”