“That's Montana!” said Scipio, snuffing. “I am glad to have it inside my lungs again.”
“Ain't yu' getting cool out there?” said the Virginian's voice. “Plenty room inside.”
Perhaps he had expected us to follow him; or perhaps he had meant us to delay long enough not to seem like a reenforcement. “These gentlemen missed the express at Medora,” he observed to his men, simply.
What they took us for upon our entrance I cannot say, or what they believed. The atmosphere of the caboose was charged with voiceless currents of thought. By way of a friendly beginning to the three hundred miles of caboose we were now to share so intimately, I recalled myself to them. I trusted no more of the Christian Endeavor had delayed them. “I am so lucky to have caught you again,” I finished. “I was afraid my last chance of reaching the Judge's had gone.”
Thus I said a number of things designed to be agreeable, but they met my small talk with the smallest talk you can have. “Yes,” for instance, and “Pretty well, I guess,” and grave strikings of matches and thoughtful looks at the floor. I suppose we had made twenty miles to the imperturbable clicking of the caboose when one at length asked his neighbor had he ever seen New York.
“No,” said the other. “Flooded with dudes, ain't it?”
“Swimmin',” said the first.
“Leakin', too,” said a third.
“Well, my gracious!” said a fourth, and beat his knee in private delight. None of them ever looked at me. For some reason I felt exceedingly ill at ease.
“Good clothes in New York,” said the third.