“Twenty minutes ago you told me she’d be in in half an hour.”
There was resentment as well as distrust in the officer’s protest.
“Sure,” the man responded glibly. “That was accordin’ to schedule. Guess Ananias must have been the fellow who invented schedules for local freights.”
The toe of Fyles’s well-polished riding-boot tapped the superheated platform.
His gray eyes suddenly fixed and held the ironical eyes of the other.
“See here, Huntly,” he said at last, in that tone of quiet authority which never deserted him for long. “I can rely on that? There’s nothing to stop her by the way—now? Nothing at all?”
But the agent shook his head, and his eyes still shone with their ironical light.
“I’d say the prophet business petered out miser’bly nigh two thousand years ago. I wouldn’t say this dogone prairie ’ud be the best place to start resurrectin’ it. No, sir! There’s too many chances for that—seein’ we’re on a branch line. There’s the track—it might give way. You never can tell on a branch line. The locomotive might drop dead of senile decay. Maybe the train crew’s got drunk, and is raisin’ hell at some wayside city. You never can tell on a branch line. Then there’s that cargo of liquor you’re yearnin’ to——”
“Cut it out, man,” broke in the officer sharply. “You are sure about the train? You know what you’re talking about?”
The agent grinned harder than ever.