"Me? No. I guess not." He walked away with his valise, and drew his coat collar up in the wind that swept the platform. "I guess I don't want him," he muttered to himself. "I guess they don't want him; not now." And he went back to the man and asked when a train left again for Chicago. He had a warrant for Shockley; but Shockley's warrant had been served.
After the others had gone, Bucks and Callahan and the surgeon talked together in the waiting room, and Chris hanging by, blear-eyed and helpless, looked from one to the other: showed his foot when Callahan pointed, and sat patient while the surgeon stitched the slit where Shockley's blade had touched the bone. Then he stood again and listened. While any one talked Chris would listen; silent and helpless, just listening. And when Bucks had gone up stairs, and the surgeon had gone up stairs, and Callahan, tired and sick, had gone up stairs, and only the operator sat under his lamp at the table, Chris stood back in the gloom in front of the stove and poked stealthily at the fire. When it blazed he dropped big chunks of smutty coal in on it, and wiped his frost-bitten nose with the back of his dirty hand, and looked toward the baggage room door and listened—listened for a cry, or a sound, or for that fearful, fearful breathing, such breathing as he had not been hearing before. But no cry, no sound, no stertorous breath came out of the darkness, and from under the lamp in front of the operator only the sounder clicked, always talking, talking, talking—talking queer things to Russian ears.
So Chris drew his cap a little lower, for so he always began, pulled mechanically from his pocket a time-table, tore off a strip, and holding it carefully open, sprinkled a few clippings of tobacco upon it, and rolled his cigarette. He tucked it between his lips; it was company for the silence, and he could more easily stop the listening. But he did not light; only pulled his cap again a little lower, buttoned close his reefer, looked at his bandaged foot, picked up his lamp, and started home.
It was dark, and the wind from the north was bitter, but he made a great detour into the teeth of it—around by the coal chutes, a long way round, a long way from the frog of the east house-track switch; and the cold stung his face as he limped heavily on. At last by the ice house he turned south, and reaching the face of the bench paused a moment, hesitating, on the side of the earthen stairs; it was very dark. After a bit he walked slowly down and pushed open the door of his dugout. It was dark inside, and cold; the fire was out. The children were asleep; the woman was asleep.
He sat down in a chair and put out his lamp. There was no Christmas that night in Little Russia.
The Wiper's Story
HOW McGRATH GOT AN ENGINE
This came about through there being whiskers on the rails. It may not be generally understood that whiskers grow on steel rails; curious as it seems, they do. Moreover, on steel rails they are dangerous, and, at times, exceedingly dangerous.
Do not infer that all steel rails grow whiskers; nor is it, as one might suppose, only the old rails that sport them. The youngest rail on the curve may boast as stout a beard as the oldest rail on the tangent, and one just as gray. They flourish, too, in spite of orders; for while whiskers are permitted on engineers and tolerated on conductors, they are never encouraged on rails. Nature, however, provides the whiskers, regardless of discipline, and, what is more, shaves them herself.