He held some object in his hand. Bart crouched by the side of the pumping standard, and the hand car spun out on the tracks crossing the valley, just as the thunder-storm broke forth in all its fury.
Bart's back was to the wind, and the wind helped his progress. As the tracks led into the timber, Bart took a last glance backwards, but rain and mist shut out all sight of the hill and his enemies.
He had no idea as to the terminus or connections of the railroad, but never relaxed his efforts as long as clear tracks showed beyond.
Bart must have gone six or seven miles, when he saw ahead some scattered houses, then a church steeple and a water tower, and he caught the echo of a locomotive whistle.
"It's the B. & M., and that is Lisle Station!" he soliloquized with unbounded satisfaction.
Fifteen minutes later, wringing wet with rain and perspiration, Bart drove the hand car up to a bumper just behind a little country depot, and leaped to the ground.
"Hello!" hailed a man inside, the station agent, staring hard at him through an open window.
Bart nodded calmly, consulting his watch and calculating mentally in a rapid way.
"See here," he said briskly, "this is Lisle Station?"
"Sure."