That they didn’t travel absolutely due north was only because the track chose to lead more westerly. By the time the sun was really in sight they had covered the better part of a half-mile and had caught a glimpse of a good-sized town in the distance. Tall chimneys and a spire or two pointed upward above a smoky haze. They crossed a big bridge beneath which flowed a broad and sluggish river, and had to flatten themselves against the parapet, Sam held tightly in Wayne’s arms, while a long freight train pounded past them on the single line of track. Beyond the bridge a “Yard Limit” sign met them, and the rails branched and switches stood up here and there like sentries and a roundhouse was near at hand. But they found their first habitation before that in a tiny white cottage set below the embankment, its gate facing a rambling clay road, rutted and pitted, that disappeared under a bridge. There was a path worn down the bank to the road, and Wayne and June and Sam descended it. A trail of smoke arose from the chimney of the house straight into the morning sunlight and suggested that the occupants were up and about.
Wayne’s knock on the door was answered by a tall, thin, slatternly woman who scowled questioningly.
“Good morning, ma’am,” began Wayne. “Could you give us a cup of coffee, please? We’ve been----”
“Get out of my yard,” was the prompt response. “I don’t feed tramps!”
“We aren’t tramps, ma’am. We’ll pay for the coffee----”
“And steal the doormat! I know your sort!” There was no doormat in sight, but Wayne didn’t notice the fact. “Go on now before I call my man to you.” The door slammed shut.
Wayne viewed June in surprise and the negro boy shook his head helplessly. “She surely is a powerful disgrumpled lady, Mas’ Wayne! Yes, sir! Reckon we better move along.”
“Maybe she isn’t well,” said Wayne, as they left the inhospitable dwelling behind and again climbed to the track. “Just the same, she didn’t have any right to call us tramps, did she? I suppose we’d better keep on to the town, June. It isn’t much farther.”
So they went on, past sidings laden with long lines of freight cars, past locomotives sizzling idly, past a crossing where eight burnished rails, aglow in the sunlight, crossed their path, under a big signal tower, their eyes very busy and their stomachs, since they had not eaten since early the preceding afternoon, very empty. A long freight shed was reached, and as they passed it one of the many doors slid slowly open and a brawny man stood revealed against the dimness beyond. He stretched his arms, yawned, caught sight of the passers and stood there, framed in the square opening, staring interestedly. Wayne stopped.