“Hungry?” asked the conductor.
“Just about starved,” confessed Bob.
“Well, we stop at Ainsworth about ten miles down the line. There’s a little place there where you can get a bite to eat.”
There appeared to be nothing else to do so Bob climbed up the steps of the old wooden coach and put his Gladstone in the first seat at the rear. The engineer whistled a wheezy “high ball” and the conductor swung up on the back end as the accommodation started its daily run for the seacoast.
The air in the coach was stuffy and Bob found it pleasanter on the rear platform, watching the track wind away in the distance and they swung around curves and chugged their way up steep grades. It seemed incredible that in such a peaceful appearing country there must be located the headquarters for a relentless band of smugglers.
The second stop of the accommodation that morning was at Ainsworth and as the train slowed down for the station, the conductor came back and spoke to Bob.
“We’ll be here about fifteen minutes. That ought to give you time enough to get something to eat. Restaurant’s right back of the station.”
Bob estimated that Ainsworth must be a village of some two hundred souls and he was dubious about the quality of the food which he would obtain, but when he stepped inside the eating house he was agreeably surprised by the cleanliness and an elderly woman took his order with pleasing promptness.
Bob took a cold cereal, and ate it with relish while eggs and bacon sputtered on a stove in the kitchen. When they were ready he ordered coffee and several doughnuts.
“Don’t need to hurry too much, they won’t go away without you,” reassured the woman who waited on him.