“It so happened that in an especially noteworthy case it was my own evidence chiefly that convicted two of the most precious rascals you ever set eyes on, Tom Jackson and Clint Parker by name.
“They were sent to Joliet for fifteen years, and I was mighty glad to serve as ‘humble instrument’ in the case, I tell you; though sometimes I did feel kind of squeamish-like when I repeat to myself the last words Parker said as they took him out of court:—
“‘As for you, Joe Townsend’ (and he shook his fist significantly in my direction) ‘all this comes of the cowardly lies you’ve sworn to; and I want you to understand that Tom Jackson and me, we aint the men to stay down at Joliet for fifteen years breaking stone. We’re goin’ to git out, we are, and you may depend upon it we’ll be keerful to pay our first respec’s to you. We’ve invented a new kind of sleeper to throw trains off with—eh, Tom?’ and he leered horribly to his crony as they passed through the door.
“Those last words of Parker’s I turned over in my mind a good many times during the next two years—somehow or other they stuck by me:—‘We’ve invented a new kind of sleeper to throw a train off the track.’
“I kind of felt as though he meant something unusual by that, although I could not make out what. It seemed that I was to find out, though, before many months.
“The house, where my wife and the babies lived was just about three-quarters of a mile below the station, and quite near the track. I generally got through at the depot at half-past eight, as soon as the accommodation went down.
“The night express, which goes through at 9.55, doesn’t pull up at R—— at all, and the through freight, which meets it down the road a piece, at W——, of course I have nothing to do with. I might mention here that the road is double-track the entire length; but there is a long bridge at W——, so that the freight always waits there for the express.
“At half-past eight, then, as I say, I was at liberty for the night, and it didn’t take me long to shut up the depot and start off down the road for home; and a lonely enough tramp it is, I tell you, even on a bright night, for the track runs all the way through woods and swamps, and it’s mighty dark and uncomfortable at best.
“Well, the night I’m going to tell you about was black as the inside of a two-mile tunnel. When I started down the track I almost wished I’d gone around by the highway, for I had to feel my way half the time.
“However, I knew the path tolerably well, and could tell where all the culverts and dangerous places were, pretty nearly.