"Did you get a message to that effect?" I demanded in a voice which must have surprised him.
"No, the wires are down between here and Oak Cliff, but a man came by here an hour ago who said it went through the village."
"Did it strike the Oak Cliff club house?" I asked.
"He didn't say," replied the operator, and then the instrument demanded his attention.
"These reports are always exaggerated," I assured Miss Harding. "Besides the club house is of stone, and it is protected by a hill to the west. Do not be in the least alarmed."
"We can only hope and wait," she softly said.
We heartily thanked Peterson and watched him as he disappeared in the darkness, tramping stolidly in the face of a driving rain.
Despite the rain it was warm and we sat on a bench under the broad roof of the platform. I did my best to take her mind away from the dread which possessed her, but it was a wretched hour for both of us. Then we saw the flicker of lights down the track, and toward us came a small army of labourers who had been clearing the roadbed between us and Woodvale.
They stopped a minute in front of the station. These hardy Italians stood in the drenching rain, axes in their hands or over their shoulders, their clothes smeared with mud, water running in streams from the rims of their broad hats; there they stood and laughed, chattered, jested and indulged in rough play while their foreman received his instructions from the telegraph operator. And then with a cheer and a song they started on their way to Oak Cliff. Happiness and contentment are gifts; they cannot be purchased.
Something to the south burned a widening circle in the mist and rain, and from its centre we made out the headlight of a locomotive. It was a passenger train, and as it crawled cautiously to the platform two men leaped from it and came toward us.