They began to talk about something else, and in the evening Kit went back to the tank.
A week afterwards, Kit one afternoon waited by the top of the grade behind the poplar bluff. The spot commanded two or three miles of the undulating line and a black smoke plume streaked a rise. A bitter north wind swept the plain and the dry white grass rippled like the sea, but the soil was hard like concrete. It looked as if arctic winter had returned and Kit thought the landscape’s distinctness ominous.
Dark clouds rolled up from the northern horizon; in the south, pale sunshine touched the grass, and bluffs and clumps of brush were sharply clear. In the distance a ravine pierced broken ground, and the small trees and ragged bank cut the gray slope in sharp black silhouette. Kit’s visitors, however, would arrive and go by train, and he watched the locomotive steam up the grade.
The flat rail cars stopped by the tank, and Austin helped Florence Grey from the locomotive cab. She gave Kit her hand, rather as if she were forced, and began to talk.
“Hold the train, Bob, until we collect all the gang. Ted went for Carrie and Alison, and I expect they’re on board the caboose. I had not been on a loco, Kit, and Bob put me in the cab, but the engineer wouldn’t stand for the lot and Alison has a smart new coat. Come on and help her down!”
They went along the track, but when they got to the caboose Harries jumped off and a brakesman shut the door.
“Where’s Carrie?” Florence inquired, and Harries gave her a puzzled look.
“I sure don’t know! I thought Mrs. Austin and Alison went with you. They certainly were not at the smith’s shop, and when the train was starting I jumped on board.”
“Oh, shucks! Didn’t you look in the office?”
“Why’d I look in the office? You said I’d get them at the smithy,” Harries rejoined.