An hour later two men, carrying lanterns and wearing rubber coats that glistened with the wet, came along and paused before the freight car. One of them consulted a way bill. “Yes, this is it,” he said. “No. 201, corn-meal for Harrisburg. Six sacks to be left at Arden. That’s all right. Shut her up, Joe. It was mighty careless of those fellows to leave the door open.”
Then Joe pushed the heavy door to, with a slam. It fastened with a spring lock, and the men with the lanterns walked away to look up the rest of their train. A little later an engine came rolling softly along the wet track to where the car stood. There was a bump, a rattle of coupling pins and links, a swinging of lanterns, and the car was drawn away, past the multitude of little red, and green, and yellow lights twinkling through the rain and darkness like big fire-flies, and marking the switches.
The car was hauled and pushed hither and thither, and others were attached to it, until at length a long train was made up. The great locomotive panted, eager to be off, and its hot breath made little clouds of fleecy steam, that were edged with flame by the glow from its open-mouthed furnace. The brakemen were at their posts on the slippery tops of the cars; the caboose at the rear end of the train looked warm and comfortable. The red lights, shining like angry eyes, were hung in position on its sides near the rear end, and freight train No. 15 was in readiness for a start.
The conductor came from the Train Despatcher’s office with a thin sheet of yellow paper, on which were written his orders, in his hand.
“No tramps on board to-night, are there, Joe?” he said to his head brakeman.
“No, sir, not a sign of one. I’ve looked carefully everywhere. It’s too wet for ’em to travel, I reckon.”
Then the conductor swung his glistening lantern, the engineer pulled the throttle, and Freight No. 15 moved slowly out into the darkness. Its first stop was at Arden, where it was to side-track and await the passing of the New York Limited. Here too were to be left six sacks of meal.
As Brakeman Joe unlocked and pushed open the door of car No. 201, and the light of his lantern flashed into its dark interior, it fell upon something that caused him to start and exclaim: