He turned leisurely and chirped to the horses. "Jim Cameron lent yous to haul that outfit to the station," he complained, as they lumbered out through the gateway, "but I'll be darned if I promised to run 'em there, so yous kin git home."
Meantime, the vanguard of the Orphan Rescue Expedition had reached the railroad track. Just on the outskirts of the village lay a deep ravine, spanned by a bridge. Over this the train moved slowly, and here, with his eye on the lookout for white signals, the conductor spied the Duke of Wellington in the middle of the track, waving a white banner. Being an Elmbrook man, Lauchie took in the situation at once. Jake and Hannah were late, of course; too late even to run across the fields while he waited at the station. He gave the signal, and the train slowed down, the snorting engine coming to a standstill within a foot of the flaunting garment.
Engine Driver Nick Boyle, who would have willingly stopped at Elmbrook every day in the week, to talk over the back fences with the pretty girls, but who objected on principle to all that his chief did, poked his head out of his black box, grimy and disapproving. "What in thunder's Brass Buttons up to now?" he demanded. Miss Weir, who had thrashed Nick times without number in his youth, fixed him with her steady gray eye.
"He stopped because I signaled him to, Nicholas Boyle," she said tartly.
The Duke was still standing in the middle of the track, waving the overalls, as though the train were a wild animal to be kept quiet by having its attention diverted. The sight tickled the engineer.
"Golly, it must be a weddin'," he remarked, facetiously. "Who's gettin' hitched? You, Miss Weir?"
"Hold your tongue!" she commanded, and the abashed young man collapsed into his box.
By this time Hannah had arrived, and was being helped aboard. The wraps, the pies, the bottle of milk, the crock of butter, the basket of provisions, and her husband, were bundled after her. The group of friends stood waving good-by with sunbonnets and aprons, the schoolmistress, still holding Jake's forgotten pipe, and still faithfully brandishing the overalls, stepped off the track to let the train start, and the expedition was just drawing a breath of relief, when they were suddenly thrown back into their former state of consternation. Conductor Lauchie leaned down from the platform, and, with his thumb pointing over his shoulder, announced in a loud whisper, "Losh keep us, I would be forgetting! He'll be aboard, Harriet Munn! Your new pill-mixer'll be aboard!"
Mrs. Munn stared at him in dismay. "Not him! Not the new doctor!"
The conductor looked abashed, as though he had brought the wrong parcel from town. "Och, he would be as fine a lookin' young man as you'll see in Oro!" he whispered, apologetically. "Will I jist be puttin' him off here?"