He was anxious to reach there in time for the races; to recoup, if possible, his dwindling amount of cash. But once again fate seemed determined to balk him.
As they reached a little station the telegraph messenger rushed out and signaled the conductor, and a few hurried words passed between them. The conductor seemed greatly disturbed, and the faces of the trainmen who gathered about them also appeared troubled.
Then came the statement by the conductor that there had been an accident to the mail train just ahead and it would be impossible to proceed. The express was ordered to remain at that station until further orders from the manager of the road.
The uneasiness among the passengers was met with the assurance that they could be transferred to another line, which would bring them into New Orleans some five hours late—that was the best that could be done for them.
Ray Challoner fairly foamed as he cursed his luck—the races would be over by the time he could reach the track—and thus fled his hopes of replenishing his pocketbook with the funds of which he stood so sorely in need.
“Is there no way of reaching there save the one you have mentioned, conductor?” he inquired, pacing nervously up and down.
“Well, there is another way—you might stand a ghost of a chance of finding a horse here that might carry you over to Greenville, a distance of some twenty miles across the roughest road you ever struck; once at Greenville you might get a conveyance to take you the other thirty miles—or a horse, or something of that kind; and if you met no mishaps and pushed rapidly on you might land in New Orleans by noon, or a little after.”
“By George! I’ll act upon your suggestion,” declared Challoner, eagerly. “I cannot more than miss, and that’s what I would be doing if——” But here he stopped short, for some one was calling for the conductor, and that functionary was obliged to excuse himself in all haste and hurry away.
Ray Challoner did not wait to see the passengers transferred, but made all haste into the village in which he found himself.
It consisted of a few straggling houses, a blacksmith shop and a couple of general stores, and a farmers’ inn.