He passed on to the next coach, a compartment and parlour car. The little smoker there promised peace and quiet. In it there sat alone a spare grey little man with a cadaverous face, who looked up from the book in his lap and gazed interestedly at Hammond. The latter lit his pipe and taking a seat in the opposite corner beside the window peered into the moon-bathed night and out over the shadowy wastes to the ragged ranges, where fitful wisps of ground aurora seemed to race with the train like wild ghouls of the night startled from their eeries by this mad, man-made thing tearing through the solitudes.
“Wild country, isn’t it?”
The voice of the little grey man startled Hammond from his reverie. “It is, magnificently so,” he replied. “There is something in its very hostile majesty that fascinates me immensely.”
“Yes? Easterner, I suppose?”
“Not exactly.” Hammond laughed. The other’s geniality drew him out of his mood. “You see, I’ve been a westerner too, and right here I feel sort of neutral.”
The little grey man laughed with him, a low, sociable cackle. “Still,” he pursued, “I’d wager you’re not a travelling man.”
“No,” a bit wearily. “Newspaper man—ex-newspaper man, I hope.”
The announcement seemed to agitate the little man more than such a commonplace announcement should. He was silent a moment while he brought forth a silver card-case. He lifted a bit of pasteboard from it, scrutinised it through his glasses, hesitated as though about to replace it in the card-case, then quite deliberately passed it to Hammond, who took it in at a glance:—
| EULAS DALY UNITED STATES CONSUL, RAM CITY, ONTARIO, CAN. |
Hammond drew out one of his own cards from a vest-pocket and reciprocated. The other still seemed needlessly perturbed. He spoke up at last as though it had cost him some effort to select a tactful opening: “And so you’ve quit the fourth estate, Mr. Hammond?”