Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/308

 When the young wheelmen stepped upon the platform they shook hands with all the trainmen, who wished them a pleasant trip and no end of fun while it lasted, and then leaned their wheels under the eaves of the little building that served as warehouse, operator's office and waiting-room, and looked about them. The light that shone from the conductor's lantern, and from the windows of the horse-car standing upon the branch track, gave them a clear view of their surroundings, which were so cheerless that the boys wondered how any road-book maker could advise wheelmen to come that way, unless he wanted to have them fooled as he had been fooled himself. At least that was the way Arthur Hastings expressed it.

"He probably came through here in the daytime, when old man Kane had a good dinner ready for him, and everything looked different," said Joe. "He wouldn't have had so much to say in favor of Dorchester's boarding-house if he had passed through in the night and been shut out of doors."

"Are we going to let what the conductor said about that Buster band induce us to change