But Keefe O’Connor objected.
“Not a bit of it,” he cried. “You men are on business, and it throws you out of your whole week’s schedule if you miss a town. I’m out gunning for scenery. Want to paint it, you understand. I have no destination—only a mileage ticket. Let me get off with the little girl. If her father is on hand, I can swing back on the train again. If he isn’t, she can guide me to her house.”
“It’s a terribly long way,” said Constance dolefully. “It’s right through the woods. You haven’t a lantern with you, have you?”
“No,” admitted Keefe, “I’ve no lantern, but I’m sure we’d make our way. Didn’t you promise me you wouldn’t worry?”
“No, sir,” said the child seriously, “I don’t think I promised.”
There really was only one person on the train who could be said to refrain, and that was the mountain woman with the snuff stick.
“I’ve been a-studying nigh on three months about going to see my son Jake,” she said, “and now it don’t seem to matter much when I do git thar. I’ve got shet of the work to home for a spell, anyhow. I’ve kep’ at it twelve year without a let-up, and setting by a while won’t trouble me none.”
No one had anything to eat, for all had counted on reaching their destination by supper time, so that sundown saw a group of hungry people with only Miss Zillah Pace’s generous supply of cookies to comfort them. But at last the engine was repaired in such a way that the engineer “reckoned it would hold,” and the train moved cautiously on through the darkness, delayed here and there at sidings, and throwing trains all along the line out of their time schedule.
There was silence in the car. The traveling men no longer told their stories; Aunt Zillah nodded but dared not doze for fear of missing her station; the mountain woman brooded patiently, caring little, it seemed, as to what fate might have in store for her; and little Constance slept in Azalea’s arms. Carin was supremely patient and quiet; and the bright eyes of Keefe O’Connor gleamed now and then from under the rim of his cap, which was pulled low over his face, and behind which he was occupied in thinking his own thoughts.
But he was alert enough when the conductor came to warn him that they were approaching Rowantree Road. He and Azalea between them got the little girl awake, and with his packages and hers, the friends saw him swing off the train in the black murk. The conductor’s lantern threw a little glow around him where he stood holding the hand of Constance fast in his own.