“I must,” Archie repeated between his teeth.
The east-bound cross-country express would go through the little settlement of Burnt Bay in the morning. The mixed accommodation would crawl by at an uncertain hour of the following day. It was now the night of the twenty-ninth of August. One day––two days. The mixed accommodation would leave Burnt Bay for St. John’s on the thirty-first of August.
“If she doesn’t forget,” said Job North, dryly.
“Or get tired an’ rest too often,” Jim Grimm added.
Archie caught an impatient breath.
“Look you, lad!” Tom Topsail declared, jumping up. “I’m the bully that will put you aboard!”
Archie flung open the door of Mrs. Skipper William’s kitchen and made for the Topsail wharf with old Tom puffing and lumbering at his heels. Billy Topsail’s mother was hailed 303 with the news. Before Tom had well made the punt shipshape for a driving cruise up the Bay she was on the wharf with a bucket of hardtack and a kettle of water. A frantic scream––perhaps, a shout––announced the coming of Mrs. Skipper William with a ham-bone and a greatcoat. These tossed inboard, she roared a command to delay, gathered up her skirts and fled into the night, whence she emerged, bounding, with a package of tea and a boiled lobster. She had no breath left to bid them Godspeed when Tom Topsail cast off; but she waved her great soft arms, and her portly person shook with the violence of her good wishes. And up went the sail––and out fluttered the little jib––and the punt heeled to the harbour breeze––and Tom Topsail and Archie Armstrong darted away from the lights of Ruddy Cove towards the open sea.
The mixed accommodation, somewhere far back in the Newfoundland wilderness, came to the foot of a long grade. She puffed and valiantly choo-chooed. It was desperately hard work to climb that hill. A man might have walked beside her while she tried it. But she 304 surmounted the crest, at last, and, as though immensely proud of herself, rattled down towards the boulder-strewn level at an amazing rate of speed. On she went, swaying, puffing, roaring, rattling, as though she had no intention whatever of coming to a stop before she had brought her five hundred mile run to a triumphant conclusion in the station at St. John’s.
Even the engineer was astonished.