Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/111

 a bandage. And the face was grinning cheerfully and pointing at Gus.

"What'll we do with that?" it said. "Throw it off?"

"By God! Tom!"

"You bet you."

He turned to Gus's coat, hanging from a hook, and calmly took the contract ticket from'a pocket.

"Do you suppose he'd listen to reason?"

"Depends on what you mean by reason."

"Two reasons, then; you and me!"

"We can try, but he's sure aimin' to get to the big city."

Voices outside warned them that they had not much time. They had wakened the Swede, too, and he sat up and yawned.

"I yust got asleep," he complained.

"Shall we fling him off, or give him a chance to go peaceable, Bill?"

"Yust try it," said the Swede, wide awake now and getting up. But there was no time for parley; already the long train was giving premonitory symptoms of departure, and at any time the rear brakeman would swing up onto the step of the caboose. Before Gus had time to square off for a fight he was caught by the elbows and hustled off the train, and Bill was throwing after him the black valise which contained his change of clothing.

Tom had only time to call out a word of warning.

"You lay low until I get to Chicago," he said. "If you don't something's going to happen to you that'll surprise you. After that you can blow the top off of hell and spit in the hole."

When the brakeman came running up with his lantern he saw a stupefied figure picking up a black valise from beside the track. But he had no time to ask questions. When he got into the caboose he found the two men he had left still apparently sleeping.

If he sensed some small drama, if he realized that a change had taken place in the personnel of the two contract men, he said nothing about it to them. And the conductor, when spoken to, only chuckled dryly. He knew Tom. If