Silverhorns
by
THE railway station of Bathurst, New Brunswick, did not look particularly merry at two o’clock of a late September morning. There was an easterly haze driving in from the Baie des Chaleurs and the darkness was so saturated with chilly moisture that an honest downpour of rain would have been a relief. Two or three depressed and somnolent travelers yawned in the waiting room, which smelled horribly of smoky lamps. The telegraph instrument in the ticket office clicked spasmodically for a minute, and then relapsed into a gloomy silence. The imperturbable station master was tipped back against the wall in a wooden armchair, with his feet on the table, and his mind sunk in an old Christmas number of the Cowboy Magazine. The express agent, in the baggage-room, was going over his last week’s waybills and accounts by the light of a lantern, trying to locate an error, and sighing profanely to himself as he failed to find it. A wooden trunk tied with rope, a couple of dingy canvas bags, a long box marked “Fresh Fish! Rush!” and two large leather portmanteaus with brass fittings were piled on the luggage truck at the far end of the platform; and beside the door of the waiting room, sheltered by the overhanging eaves, was a neat traveling bag, with a gun case and a rod case leaning against the wall. The wet rails glittered dimly northward and southward away into the night. A few blurred lights glimmered from the village across the bridge.
Dudley Hemenway had observed all these features of the landscape with silent dissatisfaction, as he smoked steadily up and down the platform, waiting for the Maritime Express. It is usually irritating to arrive at the station on time for a train on the Intercolonial Railway. The arrangement is seldom mutual; and sometimes yesterday’s train does not come along until to-morrow afternoon. Moreover, Hemenway was inwardly discontented with the fact that he was coming out of the woods instead of going in. “Coming out” always made him a little unhappy, whether his expedition had been successful or not. He did not like the thought that it was all over; and he had the very bad habit, at such times, of looking ahead and computing the slowly lessening number of chances that were left to him.
“Sixty odd years–I may get to be that old and keep my shooting sight,” he said to himself. “That would give me a couple of dozen more camping trips. It’s a short allowance. I wonder if any of them will be more lucky than this one. This makes the seventh year I’ve tried to get a moose; and the odd trick has gone against me every time.”
He tossed away the end of his cigar, which made a little trail of sparks as it rolled along the sopping platform, and turned to look in through the window of the ticket office. Something in the agent’s attitude of literary absorption aggravated him. He went round to the door and opened it.
“Don’t you know or care when this train is coming?”
“Nope,” said the man placidly.
“Well, when? What’s the matter with her? When is she due?”
“Doo twenty minits ago,” said the man. “Forty minits late down to Moocastle. Git here quatter to three, ef nothin’ more happens.”
“But what has happened? What’s wrong with the beastly old road, anyhow?”
“Freight car skipped the track,” said the man, “up to Charlo. Everythin’ hung up an’ kinder goin’ slow till they git the line clear. Dunno nothin’ more.”
With this conclusive statement the agent seemed to disclaim all responsibility for the future of impatient travelers, and dropped his mind back into the magazine again. Hemenway lit another cigar and went into the baggage room to smoke with the expressman. It was nearly three o’clock when they heard the far-off shriek of the whistle sounding up from the south; then, after an interval, the puffing of the engine on the upgrade; then the faint ringing of the rails, the increasing clatter of the train, and the blazing headlight of the locomotive swept slowly through the darkness, past the platform. The engineer was leaning on one arm, with his head out of the cab window, and Hemenway nodded as he passed and hurried into the ticket office, where the ticktack of a conversation by telegraph was soon under way. The black porter of the Pullman car was looking out from the vestibule, and when he saw Hemenway his sleepy face broadened into a grin reminiscent of many generous tips.