CHAPTER VIII
It was not what Hiram Strong said about Anna Bell Morgan, but the tone in which he said it, that raised the big interrogation point in my mind. Matters as they stood suggested the possibility that the youngster had plans in mind to "face the Governor" and that Quarrytown was a place quite good enough to settle down in if Anna Bell said the right word.
A chicken leg in one hand and a hot biscuit piled with jam in the other, he stood facing me, with an excited glitter in his eyes. Continuing, he said in a tense undertone:
"The night man is half gone on her, but he is a German—at least has a German name—and this place is intensely patriotic. As I told you, he boards there and when he is not sleeping he hangs——"
At this moment a north-bound freight rushed by, and with the noise of the locomotive and banging of the trucks over a poor railroad joint opposite the wide-open window, together with the slapping of brake beams, made further conversation impossible. He turned, watching it as though expecting something, and as the way car passed something did happen. I heard a metallic thud on the floor, at which Hiram dropped his food and began to hunt for the thing that caused the noise. Finally, by getting down on all fours, he brought out from between the old iron safe and the letter press a rail spike to which was fastened by a rubber band a piece of white paper which he carefully unfolded. It was a train order reporting train No. 192 passing at that time with two cars picked up at a siding below where there was no telegraph office. Strong sprang to his instrument and dispatched the message forthwith. I wondered if he realized the danger to himself from messages thrown in upon him that way. A railroad spike weighs about a pound, and while he was telegraphing I speculated on what would happen if one struck him, or if by any chance it struck one of the fifty-pound cases of dynamite that had come by express.
"The conductor drops his reports that way to save time," he said, calmly resuming his seat.
Hiram's days were full of things to do, therefore we never had ten minutes' connected conversation. I would have been glad to learn the situation inside the fellow's active mind. I don't think he knew. He was doing honest, useful work, and received its immediate reward in full satisfaction—his first real satisfaction—that intoxicating lure that fans a spark of ambition into a flame.
Later in the day, at a hint from Hiram, the conductor of a refrigerator train invited me to ride to New Orleans with him.
"He makes better time than the passenger," said Hiram, who in less than a week knew all the road employees by their first names. Somehow he took it for granted that I had satisfactory employment and never asked me what it was. As a matter of fact I was employed in connection with the American Defense League, a patriotic organization, which was destined to throw me in contact with Hiram Strong very often and sometimes unexpectedly. Ours was not the kind of friendship to end through mere separation.
We exchanged letters frequently. He asked me to send him a typewriter, which, though not required in the service, was "the only way to do things right," he wrote me. I noted that his letters avoided any reference to the night man or Anna Bell Morgan. I wondered if it was an oversight or intentional evasion.