Presently the old man sat still more erectly. He heard, clear above the noise of the crowd, a distant whistle—that same whistle for which he had listened daily when he had the best place beside the station platform. The train was rounding the last curve. In a moment more it would come slowly to view out of the fatal Railroad Cut, whose forty-year-old horrors Billy could describe so well.
The fields were black now with the crowd, the gunners watched their captain, and slowly the train drew in beside the bright pine platform. At the door of the last car appeared a tall and sturdy figure, and ten thousand huzzas made the hills ring. Then a thunder of guns awoke echoes which, like the terror-stricken cries from the Railroad Cut, had been silent forty years. Billy, listening, shivered. The horror had not grown less with his repeated telling.
He leaned forward now, watching for Colonel Mott's uplifted hand; he saw him signal, and then—From behind he heard a cry, and turned to look; then he swiftly swung Dan and Bess in toward the fence. A pair of horses, maddened by the noise of the firing, dashed toward him. He heard women scream, and thought, despairing, of Abbie's prophecy. There would not be room for them to pass. After all, he would not drive the President. Then he almost sobbed in his relief. They were safely by. He laughed grimly. It was Jakie Barsinger with his fine new carriage. Then Billy clutched the reins again. In the short glimpse he had caught of Jakie Barsinger, Jakie did not seem frightened or disturbed. Nor did he seem to make any effort to hold his horses in. Billy stared into the cloud of dust which followed him. What did it mean? And as he stared the horses stopped, skillfully drawn in by Jakie Barsinger's firm hand beside the yellow platform. The cloud of dust thinned a little, and Billy saw plainly now. Into the front seat of the tourists' carriage, beside Jakie Barsinger, climbed the President of the United States. Billy rose in his seat.
"Colonel Mott!" he called, frantically. "Colonel Mott!"
But no one heeded. If any one heard, he thought it was but another cheer. The crowd swarmed down to the road shouting, huzza-ing, here and there a man or a girl pausing to steady a camera on a fence-post, here and there a father lifting his child to his shoulder.