Читать книгу Hands Up! онлайн

27 страница из 67

When we appeared he spat and said: "How goes it?" and the section boss replied: "Well, how are you making out?"

The three section men looked stolid; silence fell. Then the operator spat again and said: "I was just telling the boys of when I was running one of the stations in Columbia for a gold-mining company there;" and he plunged into a story about yellow fever and how he kept the men all working and how they dropped "like flies, gents; yes, sir, like flies," and all the while his instrument behind him was giving little jerky "tick-tacks" as if some drowsy old woman napped over her knitting within.

Then the booming whistle of the approaching train sounded, the track began to sing. The engine shrieked, rounded the curve, and the "passenger" ran into the depôt with a whirl of dust and an odour of oil and hot iron. The conductor and one man alighted. A tin box shot out of one of the cars; the conductor called "All aboard!" and then, as the train moved on again, he stood, holding out a hand to catch a rail, foot slightly raised ready to step on when the end of a car would come level, and—"How-do gents!" he hailed. "How's things up here? On the boom?" laughed, stepped aboard, waved his hand; and the train slid out and we sat looking at the tail-light dwindling—then looked at the man who stood on the platform in the dusk.