ain was moving very, very slowly, and though
he had no lantern to wave, in order to bring it to a halt he need only
stand on the track exposed to the glare of the headlight and wave his
arms. David sprang between the rails and gesticulated wildly. But in
amazement his arms fell to his sides. For the train, now only a hundred
yards distant and creeping toward him at a snail's pace, carried no
head-light, and though in the moonlight David was plainly visible, it
blew no whistle, tolled no bell. Even the passenger coaches in the rear
of the sightless engine were wrapped in darkness. It was a ghost of a
train, a Flying Dutchman of a train, a nightmare of a train. It was as
unreal as the black swamp, as the moss on the dead trees, as the ghostly
tug-boat tied to the rotting wharf.

"Is the place haunted!" exclaimed David.

He was answered by the grinding of brakes and by the train coming to
a sharp halt. And instantly from every side men fell from it to the
ground, and the silence of the night was broken by a confusion of calls
and eager greeting and questions and sharp words of command.

So fascinated was David in the stealthy arrival of the train and in her
mysterious passengers that, until they confronted him, he did not note
the equally stealthy approach of three men. Of these one was the little
man from the tug. With him was a fat, red-faced Irish-American He wore
no coat and his shirt-sleeves were drawn away from his hands by garters
of pink elastic, his derby hat was balanced behind his ears, upon his
right hand flashed an enormous diamond. He looked as though but at that
moment he had stopped sliding glasses across a Bowery bar. The third man
carried the outward marks of a sailor. David believed he was the tallest
man he had ever beheld, but equally remarkable with his height was his
beard and hair, which were of a fierce brick-dust red. Even in the mild
moonlight it flamed like a torch.

"What's your business?" demanded the man with the flamboyant hair.

"I came here," began David, "to wait for a train--"

The tall man bellowed with indignant rage.

"Yes," he shouted; "this is the sort of place any one would pick out to
wait for a train!"

In front of David's nose he shook a fist as large as a catcher's glove.
"Don't you lie to ME!" he bullied. "Do you know who I am? Do you know
WHO you're up against? I'm--"

The barkeeper person interrupted.

"Never mind who you are," he said. "We know that. Find out who