Stafford had at frequent intervals during the day been in communication with the relief train and had received neither encouragement nor the opposite. There had been a sharp questioning of a new man in charge, a person who seemed to know his business thoroughly, but who was far from voluble in conversation. Evidently the emergency had been thought such as to require the presence of someone of greater versatility than was likely to be possessed by the train crew, but from this new overseer the questioner received but little satisfaction. In fact the boss had seemed not altogether open and candid in his statements and Stafford had become a trifle irritated. He put the case lightly, for the man to whom he was talking was evidently bright:
"I'm not altogether satisfied with your answers. We people imprisoned here have a right to know exactly what the outlook is. Why don't you come to me more like a child to its mother? We are cutting wood for fuel, and the food supply is getting low. What are you doing over there?"
"Are you a railroad man?"
"Well, I've seen a railroad."
"You ought to know what this job is then. It's a pretty tough one."
"I know it, but why don't you answer my questions more definitely? Have you anything up your sleeve?"
"Possibly; my sleeves are pretty big. This I'll tell you, though, that I think we're all right. I'd tell you more if I felt sure myself. We're going to try something. That's all."
Somehow, this elated Stafford. He felt that he had been talking to a man who knew what he was about and he became confident that release was close at hand. But was he elated, after all? Release would mean that there would remain but two more days of Her, for, in such event, within two days the train would be in Chicago. He was in a most uncertain mood.
He was restless and unreasonable. Why to him should come such perplexity in life, such trial to one who had banished himself to avoid temptation? Yet, here it was, thrust in his way again, and he must be once more a Tantalus. He became mightily impatient as he brooded and wished that he had Fate where he could punish her. Just what he would do with that lady in such contingency he hardly knew. He got to speculating upon that and had all sorts of fancies. He conceived the grotesque idea that the ducking-stool would be about the thing. The association of Fate with the ducking-stool seemed somewhat incongruous, it is true, something in the way of an anachronism, it was such a far cry from Homer to New England, but that didn't matter. She certainly deserved the ducking-stool,—and then he could not but laugh at himself and his vexed fancies. It was a trait of Stafford that, whatever the situation, he was certain in turning it over in his mind, to give it some fantastic sidelight, which diverted his attention, and that generally relieved him. The idea of having Fate in the ducking-stool appealed to him just now and smoothed his mood. How would that arbitrary lady, she who had had her own way with the world so long, conduct herself under such trying circumstances, for trying he inferred they were, from old prints which he had studied with great interest in his childhood. He imagined the way in which her long hair would float out upon the water as the shore end of the board went up and she, in the chair at the other end, went down and under water, and, in imagination, he could hear her gasp a little, stubborn as she is reputed to be. How would she behave and comport herself after the third or fourth dip? Would she prove amenable and, when she had got her breath, pledge herself to be henceforth and for all time a little more considerate of the comfort of humanity? For lovers especially would she exhibit a more kindly and understanding regard? If not, why, then, under she must go again!
So he ambled on foolishly and to his own relief. An admirable thing for Stafford was it that these whimsies so often seized upon him, equally when he was enraged or distressed, it didn't matter which. They helped to tide him over the mental emergency. Happy the man who has such an odd streak in the composition of his under-nature.