A long hoarse whistle startled them.
"A freight train!" cried Sube. "If it stops, we'll jump it!"
They tumbled down the stairs, blew out the candle, and restoring it to its hiding place, started on a run for the railroad station some three blocks away. As they passed under an electric light on the corner they heard a shout behind them; but instead of stopping to investigate they put on more speed. After a little Gizzard looked back and caught a glimpse of their pursuer.
"It's Dan Lannon all right!" he panted. "And he's after us!"
The fugitives pressed forward to the very limit of their speed. Suddenly with a roar and a rumble the freight train pulled into the station and came to a stop, effectively blocking the street along which they were going. To clamber aboard at that point was not to be thought of, for an electric light at the crossing made the entire neighborhood as light as day. A flank movement was inevitable.
Sube dashed to the right, calling to Gizzard to follow. But Gizzard had already started towards the left. By the time the boys discovered their mistake the enemy was already threatening their lines of communication; and so they were separated.
Gizzard skirted the rear end of the freight train and went directly home, where he was sent to bed and no questions asked. But Sube cut in between two houses, fell over a flower bed, caught his chin on a clothesline, tore his pants on a barbed-wire fence, and skinned his knee against a woodpile. Then he found himself in his own back yard with no place to go. He tarried in the dark shadows recovering his wind and feeling, no doubt, quite like the prodigal son. But he did not tarry long. There were too many mysterious sounds on all sides to suit him. He must go somewhere. Only one place presented itself; so he clambered up a post of the back porch, and slipping through the window was soon cuddled up spoon-fashion to his sleeping brother, Cathead.
And there his mother found him an hour later, sound asleep. She called his father. "Look in the bed," she said. "Here we've been worrying about Sube and all the time he was right where he belonged. He must have come in while you were talking to Mr. Lannon."
"That's very likely," his father agreed; "but I wonder what he's been up to. I'm always suspicious of Sube when he does anything he ought to."
"Don't you think you'd better call up Mr. Lannon and tell him that Sube has come home? He might go all around looking for him."