The light in the station was extinguished and the agent came out with a jingling bunch of keys and locked the door. “Good-night, Jim,” he shouted, and walked off into the blackness. Jim responded with a “good-night” of his own and climbed aboard the wagon, into the dark interior of which the doctor had preceded him. The boy at the other end of the platform began to be really alarmed. It looked as if all living things were abandoning him and he was to be left marooned, to starve or freeze, provided he was not blown away first.
He picked up the suitcase--an expensive suitcase it was, elaborately strapped and buckled, with a telescope back and gold fittings--and hastened toward the wagon. Mr. Young had just picked up the reins.
“Oh,--oh, I say!” faltered the boy. We have called him “the boy” all this time, but he did not consider himself a boy, he esteemed himself a man, if not full-grown physically, certainly so mentally. A man, with all a man's wisdom, and more besides--the great, the all-embracing wisdom of his age, or youth.
“Here, I say! Just a minute!” he repeated. Jim Young put his head around the edge of the wagon curtain. “Eh?” he queried. “Eh? Who's talkin'? Oh, was it you, young feller? Did you want me?”
The young fellow replied that he did. “This is South Harniss, isn't it?” he asked.
Mr. Young chuckled. “Darn sure thing,” he drawled. “I give in that it looks consider'ble like Boston, or Providence, R. I., or some of them capitols, but it ain't, it's South Harniss, Cape Cod.”
Doctor Holliday, on the back seat of the depot wagon, chuckled. Jim did not; he never laughed at his own jokes. And his questioner did not chuckle, either.
“Does a--does a Mr. Snow live here?” he asked.
The answer was prompt, if rather indefinite. “Um-hm,” said the driver. “No less'n fourteen of him lives here. Which one do you want?”
“Mr. Z. Snow, eh? Humph! I don't seem to recollect any Mr. Z. Snow around nowadays. There used to be a Ziba Snow, but he's dead. 'Twan't him you wanted, was it?”
“No. The one I want is--is a Captain Snow. Captain--” he paused before uttering the name which to his critical metropolitan ear had seemed so dreadfully countrified and humiliating; “Captain Zelotes Snow,” he blurted, desperately.