She rose and extended her hand. "We can be very good friends, I trust."
He took her hand in a warm clasp. "I'll do what I can--be sure of that."
"I feel very much alone all of a sudden. I'm depending on you. You're not going back to the drive right away, are you?" she asked, anxiously.
"I'll be held here for a day or so." The matter of the dynamite was on his mind.
"Good!" she said, and patted his arm when he turned to leave the room.
Latisan took the forenoon train down from Adonia to the junction the next day. He was keeping his own counsel about his intent.
He had done some busy thinking during the evening after he left the new star boarder in her parlor. In spite of his efforts to confine his attention, in his thoughts, to business, he could not keep his mind wholly off her attractive personality and her peculiar proposition. He was obliged to whip up his wrath in order to get solidly down to the Flagg affairs.
By the time he went to sleep he knew that he was determinedly ugly. There was the slur of Flagg about his slack efficiency in meeting the schemes of Craig. There was the ireful consciousness that the narrow-gauge folks were giving him a raw deal on that dynamite matter. They had hauled plenty of explosive for the Comas--for Craig. To admit at the outset of his career on the Noda that he could not get what the Three C's folks were getting--to advertise his impotency by making a twenty-mile tote trip over slushy and rutted roads--was a mighty poor send-off as a boss, he told himself. He knew what sort of tattle would pursue him.
The stout young man--that "drummer"--was at the station. Latisan was uncomfortably conscious that this person had been displaying more or less interest in him. In the dining room at breakfast, in the office among the loafers, and now at the railroad station the stranger kept his eyes on Latisan.
The drive master was just as ugly as he had been when he went to sleep. He was keeping his temper on a wire edge for the purposes of the job of that day, as he had planned the affair. He did not go up to the impertinent drummer and cuff his ears, but the stranger did not know how narrowly he escaped that visitation of resentment.
The fellow remained on the platform when the train pulled out; it occurred to Latisan that the fresh individual maybe wished to make sure of a clear field in order to pursue his crude tactics with the lady of the parlor.