The sounds drew nearer, so did the light. Then an old-fashioned buggy, drawn by a plump little sorrel, pulled up by the platform and a hand held a lantern aloft.
“Hello!” hailed a voice. “Where are you?”
The hail did not have to be repeated. Before the vehicle reached the station the boy had tossed away the cigarette, picked up the suitcase, and was waiting. Now he strode into the lantern light.
“Here I am,” he answered, trying hard not to appear too eager. “Were you looking for me?”
The holder of the lantern tucked the reins between the whip-socket and the dash and climbed out of the buggy. He was a little man, perhaps about forty-eight or fifty, with a smooth-shaven face wrinkled at the corners of the mouth and eyes. His voice was the most curious thing about him; it was high and piping, more like a woman's than a man's. Yet his words and manner were masculine enough, and he moved and spoke with a nervous, jerky quickness.
He answered the question promptly. “Guess I be, guess I be,” he said briskly. “Anyhow, I'm lookin' for a boy name of--name of--My soul to heavens, I've forgot it again, I do believe! What did you say your name was?”
“Sartin, sartin! Sper--er--um--yes, yes. Knew it just as well as I did my own. Well, well, well! Ye-es, yes, yes. Get right aboard, Alfred. Let me take your satchel.”
He picked up the suitcase. The boy, his foot upon the buggy step, still hesitated. “Then you're--you're not my grandfather?” he faltered.
“Eh? Who? Your grandfather? Me? He, he, he!” He chuckled shrilly. “No, no! No such luck. If I was Cap'n Lote Snow, I'd be some older'n I be now and a dum sight richer. Yes, yes. No, I'm Cap'n Lote's bookkeeper over at the lumber consarn. He's got a cold, and Olive--that's his wife--she said he shouldn't come out to-night. He said he should, and while they was Katy-didin' back and forth about it, Rachel--Mrs. Ellis--she's the hired housekeeper there--she telephoned me to harness up and come meet you up here to the depot. Er--er--little mite late, wan't I?”
“Why, yes, just a little. The other man, the one who drives the mail cart--I think that was what it was--said perhaps the horse was sick, or something like that.”
“No-o, no, that wan't it this time. I--er--All tucked in and warm enough, be you? Ye-es, yes, yes. No, I'm to blame, I shouldn't wonder. I stopped at the--at the store a minute and met one or two of the fellers, and that kind of held me up. All right now? Ye-es, yes, yes. G'long, gal.”