Stuffy Tyler, who had raced through his supper and who had been busy ever since refreshing himself at the bar, greeted his foreman with a hearty smack on the back.
“Y’u again?” Hobe queried.
“Little me, Hobe.”
And then, without further ado, he roared that old range song, the first two lines of which run:
“Oh, no, Jenny!
What would yore father say?”
Hobe knew what father said, and he was not minded to listen to his complaint this night. A wooden awning stretched across the walk in front of the hotel. There, the foreman found refuge from Stuffy’s bawling.
The storm clouds which had been gathering to the north had circled round to the west; but they were nearer now. Far away, a mile or more, the steel rails of the Espee main line began to dance in the glow of a powerful headlight. A second later the light itself appeared. It was the freight that would roll away with those loaded cars of wool and those others filled with Diamond-Bar’s steers.
For a brief moment the light seemed to pause there on the brink of the wide valley. Another second and it was dashing down upon Standing Rock.
Its coming was dramatic, and it held Hobe’s attention. Suddenly the speeding circle of light was dimmed. It was rain. Not a drop had fallen, as yet, where he sat. But there, a quarter of a mile away, was the coming storm, racing the train into town.