The result was inevitable. The whole organization suffered from managerial unwillingness. There was only one train in each direction in each week, and the rolling stock was the decaying cast-off of the greater road. In winter, without regard to schedule, the train groaned and clanked its way to its home depot, provided always a snowstorm had not chanced to bury it on the way. In spring the hazard of its journey was added to by the chances of “washouts,” and the devastating ice jams on the rivers which crossed its track. Summer, of course, was its best season. But even in summer forest fires became a source of perilous interference.
The missionary’s comment was more than warranted. And his claim to luck was well enough founded. So he had eaten the uninteresting supper provided, with an appetite that was inspired by ease of spirit.
Now he was waiting for his bill and the next stop. Then he would make his way back to the end of the train, behind a dozen or more freight cars. There he would join his tiny son and the nurse, Luana.
The man closed his book as the waiter staggered towards him. The uniformed trainman stood at the table swaying to the merciless jolting of the car. And he scrawled a bill, and made change to the note which the missionary handed him.
“We’re doing well, Jim,” Steele ventured hopefully, as the waiter accepted his proffered tip. “If we pass the Sisselu down below without interference, we ought to make the lake by noon to-morrow.”
Optimism, however, was not the trainman’s strong point. He had been too long on the road.
“You just can’t say,” he doubted, with a shake of his gray head. “You folks have got Sisselu Ford bad. ’Tain’t that way with us. The ford ain’t a circumstance to the ‘washouts’ we ken hit on the flats. A ‘washout’ ken easy hold us up twenty-four hours. It’s true it don’t worry. We ken sit around dry, and I got food aboard fer a week. I just got to have it. The Sisselu gradient’s a dead straight run to the bottom and no water can worry. There ain’t a bend till you hit the river bank, and the timbers of the trestle’ll stand up to any old river ice. No. It’s the ‘washouts’ on the flats this time o’ year that holds us up.”
“Any news of them?” There was anxiety in Steele’s tone, and the pretty eyes of his wife were raised waiting for the trainman’s reply.
The waiter grinned sardonically.
“We don’t need noos,” he observed lugubriously. “You see,” he added, as he prepared to move on to the next table, “they happen along when the notion takes the flood water. Then you just got to set around.”