After his hasty survey, Phil darted on into the yards. Although Hobart was a very small town, the yards there were quite sizable, since it was a sort of a transfer point for freight and passengers bound into Canada, and then there was a long siding that was used for the pulp cars that came from Ferguson’s mills at Coldenham.
Along one side of the siding was the long storehouse where the bulky packages of pulp were stored until a sufficient quantity had accumulated to make it worth while to have a long string of freight cars come from Bangor or below to carry it to the paper mills.
Phil noted that the Coldenham train was already on this siding, but the engineer was nowhere to be seen. He made his way to the storehouse landing and walked along the string of cars wondering in just what manner he could get on the train without being observed. He did not, of course, care to buy a ticket and ride as a regular passenger, for that would tip his hand to any of the enemy that might be around.
There was the chance of ducking into one of the freight cars, and hiding there until the train started, and then in some manner making his way to the roof of the car, and in this way proceed along the top until he could come within sight of the cab.
The slight element of danger in this was that some station employe or the engineer himself, for that matter, might make a tour of the cars just for the purpose of preventing anyone from getting a free ride.
After conning over the situation, Phil discarded the idea of boarding the train while it was in the yard.
There was still a long wait until the train would start, so Phil decided to utilize it by strolling up the track for a short distance to see if there was any spot where he could wait and, unobserved, get on the moving train. He walked nearly a mile, but saw that there was no spot where he could do this. In some places, a house or two bordered the tracks, and women could be seen working in little gardens, or sewing while sitting in front of the houses.
At others, where there was no danger of being seen, the ditching at the side of the road provided no place where he could locate himself without being observed by the engineer.
He glanced at his watch and saw that he still had plenty of time for further investigation, so he walked on.
His added walk was rewarded, for he came to a spot where there was a fairly deep cut between two natural miniature cliffs. Spanning the cliffs was an open bridge; that is, it was open at the top, but the sides came up for a matter of three feet or so.