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186 of an empty box-car. Cunningly boarding this car from the opposite side, the trainman caught the skulker unawares, and booted him vaingloriously into the night.

Shortly after the freight train had gone on its way a second headlight appeared in the east, swept swiftly across the plain, stopped at Detail an instant, and then proceeded to back onto the siding.

The second bird of passage proved to be a locomotive drawing a single car—a Pullman.

As the Pullman jolted across the frogs, however, the brakeman, interposing himself between it and the tender, released the coupling.

By the time that the Pullman had come to a full stop on the siding the locomotive was swinging westward like a scared jackrabbit. Then three men appeared on the Pullman's platform and shook impotent fists in the direction taken by the fugitive engine.

At the sound of a voice calling from the interior of the par—a voice strangely sonorous of tone—the three men ran back into the car and reported, with countenances variously apologetic, to a man wrapped in a steamer-rug and a cloud of fury.

While this was taking place, the person of boyish appearance, who had been keeping aloof and inconspicuous in the background of Detail ever since that unhappy affair with the trainman, stole up to the rear of the stalled Pullman, climbed aboard, and un-