The telegraph office in the railway station was a dingy place of cobwebbed murk. It was also the express office, and in helter-skelter disarray lay a litter of uncalled-for plow-shares and such articles as go from the end of the rails into that hinterland where lies an isolated world of crag and loneliness.
Except for the operator—who was also ticket-agent and general factotum—it was now empty and dull of light with its smeared window glasses between its interior and the dispirited grayness of the outer skies. The dust-covered papers and miscellany which cumbered the table long undisturbed, spoke of an idle office and of hours unedged with interest.
As Halloway's great bulk shadowed the door, Wicks glanced up, and nodded with a somewhat surly unwelcome.
"Did ye want anything," he asked shortly.
"No, just loafin' 'round," drawled the visitor as he settled indolently into a chair which creaked its complaint under his weight.
For a short while the two kept up a perfunctory semblance of conversation, but between these interchanges of comment, lengthening intervals elapsed.
Wicks sat inertly gazing at those familiar stains on the wall which long familiarity had made hateful to him. His expression was moody and only occasionally did he turn to glance at his unbidden guest.
Halloway's head had fallen forward on his chest and soon his heavy breathing became that of a man who is napping.
Finally the other opened his key and sounded the call for Viper, a hamlet ten miles away, though in practical effect it was more distant since the road between twisted painfully over ridge and through gorge. It was on an infrequently used freight spur but it boasted communication with the world by wire—and it was important now because it was a town through which Alexander must pass on her way from Coal City to the mouth of Shoulder-blade Creek.
The metallic voice of the telegraph key subsided, and shortly came the response. Halloway still breathed heavily on—a sleeping giant whose ears were very much awake. This was no official message paying toll, but a private conversation between operators bent on whiling away dull moments. Moreover it was evidently the continuation of talk previously commenced so that to the eavesdropper it was like a continued story of which he had missed the opening chapters.