Yes, that was a puzzle. If he was meeting some one, why carry baggage for a journey?
With its loudly clanging bell the great train steamed slowly into the station. Both men watched the half-breed with the keenest attention. He stood there quite passively as the passengers thronged out of the cars. He watched them indolently as they passed him in a stream. Then with an air of casualness he picked up his grip and strolled towards the train.
“Damn,” grunted Clement. “Nothing at all. He’s just going to board the train. Look here, we must look slippy, too, if we are to travel by her also.”
He picked up his own grip, began to move out to cross the intervening rails and platforms to the train. Gatineau said suddenly, “Hold on—ain’t that long scarecrow of a feller interested in our pal?”
Clement shot a look towards the train. He saw a tall man moving aimlessly after Siwash. Clement did not recognize this fellow until suddenly he caught a flash of a skinny leg and arm as the fellow dodged between the passengers, and he had an abrupt twinge of memory. Where the devil had he seen that scarecrow before?
Gatineau caught his arm and lugged him behind a stack of baggage.
Siwash had walked up to the car in which his seat was reserved. He handed his grip to the black porter, and then, after pretending to mount into the car, had turned back as though to take one last look at Winnipeg. In that moment he swept the whole of the platform with a searching glance—fortunately he kept his eyes on his own platform. Satisfied that there were no watchers, he turned and stared straight at the skinny man. The skinny man was by his side in a moment.
There was a swift talk between the twain. The skinny one listening attentively, and nodding his head as if he understood. Then Siwash took a paper from his pocket, and the other stretched out his long and skinny arm. And at that gesture, memory came to Clement. He remembered acutely such an arm stretching out from a small window clutching at the pistol hand of Siwash. “Heavens!” he breathed. “The fellow from the glue factory—from the Sault Algonquin at Quebec. Another of the beasts on the spot.”