view of force and duress that moment better than ever before.
But how to get to hell out of there, or to anywhere else out of there, was the question. The passengers were leaving the train, not caring much where it stopped, many of them gathering around to enjoy the spectacle of a balky horse holding up a train. Tom had tried everything he knew on that horse; if anybody had a remedy to offer that would move him before his time, suggestions were then in order.
The conductor said here, some of you fellers—speaking to all assembled—git a hold of this damn wagon and roll it to hell off of this damn track. But conductors were even less popular than agents in Drumwell, where most of the male inhabitants had memories of high-handed dealings over fares and excess fares, and the question of taking dogs on board. They gave him cold looks and no assistance.
It looked as if the conductor would have to stoop to common labor himself to remove that obstruction, when Tom Simpson, nonchalantly striking a match on the sole of his boot, held the little flame to the balky horse's belly and moved him with a grunt and much twisting of the tail, and a look of wide-awake surprise on his romannosed countenance.
Tom had much pleasure in his discovery as he climbed to the seat and drove his bones clear of the track, and on to his unloading place, without a look behind to see the engineer range up to the water tank or the agent go hopping along the platform to get a truck for the trunks and express.
