Besides, there were other things,
official things to be looked to.
A full report would be expected of him, as to the cause of the accident.
The presence of the boulder in the wreckage explained that grimly. It
was now his routine duty to collect the names of the dead and wounded,
and such details as he could elicit. He went about it briskly,
conscientiously, and with distaste. All this would go to the claim agent
of the road eventually and might serve to mitigate the total of damages
exacted of the company. Vaguely Banneker resented such probable
penalties as unfair; the most unremitting watchfulness could not have
detected the subtle undermining of that fatal boulder. But essentially
he was not interested in claims and damages. His sensitive mind hovered
around the mystery of death; that file of crumpled bodies, the woman of
the stilled smile, the man fondling a limp hand, weeping quietly.
Officially, he was a smooth-working bit of mechanism. As an individual
he probed tragic depths to which he was alien otherwise than by a large
and vague sympathy. Facts of the baldest were entered neatly; but in the
back of his eager brain Banneker was storing details of a far different
kind and of no earthly use to a railroad corporation.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32