ng down the platform toward him. He was so
exactly of the rustic railroad type that he confused Gaites with a doubt
as to which functionary, of the many he now knew, this was.

"Go'n' to walk over to the hotel?" he asked.

"Yes," Gaites faltered, and the man abruptly turned, and made the
gesture for starting a locomotive to the driver of the Middlemount
stage.

"All right, Jim!" he shouted, and the stage drove off.

"What time can I get a train for Lower Merritt this afternoon?" asked
Gaites.

"Four o'clock," said the man. "This freight goes out first;" and now
Gaites noticed that up on a siding beyond the station an engine with a
train of freight-cars was fretfully fizzing. The engineer put a
silk-capped head out of the cab window and looked back at the
station-master, who began to work his arms like a semaphore telegraph.
Then the locomotive tooted, the bell rang, and the freight-train ran
forward on the switch to the main track, and commenced backing down to
where they stood. Evidently it was going to pick up the car with Phyllis
Desmond's piano in it.

"When does this freight go out?" Gaites palpitated.

"'Bout ten minutes," said the station-master.

"Does it stop at Lower Merritt?"

"Leaves this cah the'a," said the man, as if surprised into the
admission.

"Can I go on her?" Gaites pursued, breathlessly.

"Well, I guess you'll have to talk to this man about that," and the
station-master indicated, with a nod of his head, the freight conductor,
who was swinging himself down from the caboose, now come abreast of them
on the track. A brakeman had also jumped down, and the train fastened on
to the waiting car, under his manipulation, with a final cluck and jolt.

The conductor and station-master exchanged large oblong Manila-paper
envelopes, and the station-master said, casually, "Here's a man wants to
go to Lower Merritt with you, Bill."

The conductor looked amused and interested. "Eva travel in a caboose?"

"No."

"Well, I guess you can stand it fo' five miles, anyway."

He turned and left Gaites, who understood this for permission, and
clambered into the car, where he found himself in a rude but far from
comfortless interior. There was a sort of table or desk in the middle,
with a heavy chair or two before it; round the side of the car were some
leather-covered benches, suitable for the hard naps which seemed to be
taken on them, if he could guess from the man in overalls asleep on one.

The