The overland train ground to a stop at the little station of Sibley Junction, unloaded one passenger and a couple of heavy valises, and then hurried on, as if glad to get away.
Sibley Junction consisted of the depot, a water-tank and a saloon. The depot and water-tank were on one side of the railroad; the saloon was on the other. The saloon was a weatherbeaten, false-fronted structure, one side of which still bore traces of having been decorated with a circus poster.
There was no sidewalk, no awning. The false-front leaned back, as if weary of it all. The surrounding hills were hazy with the afternoon heat, and the dust from the passing train seemed to hang suspended in the windless atmosphere. There was no sign of life, except two saddled horses dozing at the hitch-rack beside the saloon.
The lone passenger from the overland picked up his valises and walked heavily to the waiting-room of the depot, dropped the valises and mopped his red face. He was a big man, square-headed, heavy-jawed, well dressed. His baggage was of expensive leather. He looked around sourly as the head and shoulders of a sleepy-eyed depot-agent appeared at the ticket window.
“Howdy, Mr. Moran,” said the man with the sleepy eyes. “I kinda thought somebody got off Number Six.”
“Yeah!” grunted Franklyn Moran.
“Goin’ over to Turquoise City, eh?”
“Yeah. Train on time?”
“Might be here on time tomorrow—not today. They went in the ditch this side of Wiebold, and the report is that they won’t move nothin’ over this jerkwater line for at least twenty-four hours, Mr. Moran. I’m sorry.”
Moran almost exploded. Slim Regan’s telegram had caused him to drop everything and head for Turquoise City. And here he was, twenty-five miles away, with no hotel, no livery-stable, no way for him to travel that twenty-five miles, except on foot.