But unfortunately the Captain was in conversation with the conductor at the other end of the train.  Issy, willing and officious, sprang forward.  “I’ll take it, Bill,” he volunteered.  “Here, give it to me.”

The baggage master handed down the package, a good sized one marked “Glass.  With Care.”  Issy received it, clutched it to his bosom, turned and saw Gertie Higgins, pretty daughter of Beriah Higgins, stepping from the first car to the platform.  Gertie had been staying with an aunt in Trumet and was now returning home for a day or two.

Issy stopped short and gazed at her.  He saw her meet and kiss her father, and the sight roused turbulent emotions in his bosom.  He saw her nod and smile at acquaintances whom she passed.  She approached, noticed him, and—­oh, rapture!—­said laughingly, “Hello, Is.”  Before he could recover his senses and remember to do more than grin she had disappeared around the corner of the station.  Therefore he did not see the young man who stepped forward to shake her hand and whisper in her ear.  This young man was Sam Bartlett, and, as a “city dude,” Issy loathed and hated him.

No, Issy did not see the hurried and brief meeting between Bartlett and Gertie Higgins, but he had seen enough to cause forgetfulness of mundane things.  For an instant he stared after the vanished vision.  Then he stepped blindly forward, tripped over something—­“his off hind leg,” so Captain Sol afterwards vowed—­and fell sprawling, the express package beneath him.

The crash of glass reached the ears of the depot master.  He broke away from the conductor and ran toward his prostrate “assistant.”  Pushing aside the delighted and uproarious bystanders, he forcibly helped the young man to rise.

“What in time?” he demanded.

Issy agonizingly held the package to his ear and shook it.

“I—­I’m afraid somethin’s cracked,” he faltered.

The crowd set up a whoop.  Ed Crocker appeared to be in danger of strangling.

“Cracked!” repeated Captain Sol.  “Cracked!” he smiled, in spite of himself.  “Yes, somethin’s cracked.  It’s that head of yours, Issy.  Here, let’s see!”

He snatched the package from the McKay hands and inspected it.

“Smashed to thunder!” he declared.  “Who’s the lucky one it belongs to?  Humph!” He read the inscription aloud, “Major Cuthbertson S. Hardee.  The Major, hey! . . .  Well, Is, you take the remains inside and you and I’ll hold services over it later.”

“I—­I didn’t go to do it,” protested the frightened Issy.

“Course you didn’t.  If you had you wouldn’t.  You’re like the feller in Scriptur’, you leave undone the things you ought to do and do them that—­All right, Jim!  Let her go!  Cast off!”

The conductor waved his hand, the engine puffed, the bell rang, and the train moved onward.  For another twelve hours East Harniss was left marooned by the outside world.