The train was of the “mixed” type that crawls about the southwest. A dingy, battered, passenger coach trailed at the end of a long line of freight cars, which were labeled for the most part with the white circle and black cross of the “Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fé.” The men scrambled aboard, the engine grunted lazily, protestingly, and the long train slowly started. Until the train was well under way, McKay stood with his broad back against the door, his hand lying nonchalantly but significantly on a revolver beneath his vest, then, with a contented smile, he dropped into a seat.
Loring had no hat. In Arizona, a man may go without his trousers, and be called eccentric. To go without a hat is ungentlemanly. Consequently the three other white men whom McKay had collected kept themselves aloof, and Stephen, crawling into a seat beside a voluble Chinaman, dozed off in misery, wondering whether the murmuring buzz that he heard was in his head, or in the car wheels. The Chinaman looked down at Stephen’s unshaven face and matted hair, and grinned pleasantly.
“He allee samee broke,” he murmured to himself, crooning with pleasure.
For six hours the train had been plowing its way across the desert, backing, stopping, groaning, wheezing. The blue line of the hills seemed little nearer than in the morning. Only the hills behind seemed farther away. Now and then, far out in the sage-brush, a film of dust hung low in the air, telling of some sheep outfit driving to new grazing lands. On the side of the train next Loring, a trail followed the line of the telegraph poles. Wherever the trail crossed the track and ran for a while on the opposite side, Stephen felt a childish anger at it, for otherwise he could amuse himself by counting the skeletons of horses and cattle, which every mile or so made splatches of pure white against the gray white of the dust. The passengers slouched in the hot seats, rolling countless cigarettes with the dexterity which marks the Southwesterner, drawing the string of the “Durham” sack with a quick jerk of the teeth, at the close of the operation. The air of the car reeked with smoke. At each little station-shed new men joined the crowd, being received with looks of silent sympathy and invariably proffering a request for the “makings.” When this was received, they resignedly settled on the torn black leather of the seats, trying to accomplish the impossible feat of resting their necks on the edge of the backs without cramping their legs against the seats in front of them.
The train stopped suddenly with a jerk which was worse than usual, as if the engine had stumbled over itself. The brakeman, a target for many jests, hurried through the car.
“What have we stopped for now?” drawled McKay. “To enjoy the scenic effect?”
“Horse runned along ahead of the engine and bust his leg in the trestle,” laconically answered the brakeman.
“The son-of-a-gun! Now, the critter showed durned poor judgment, didn’t he?”
The brakeman swore mildly, and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned, carefully spat in the empty stove, and the train casually moved on again.
Seeing a paper lying in the aisle, as he walked down the car, the brakeman stooped and picked it up. His eye fell upon a large red seal, and much elaborate writing. With a puzzled expression he read the document.