“The weather was warm and I slept in a cow shack when I found one, and in the bushes when they got scarce. Finally I reached the railroad. I had never tried stealing a ride, sleeping on the trucks, hiding in freight cars, and being put off time and again until the next town was reached—I had never tried it because it had never been necessary, and then I hated that sort of thing. But I had no objection to asking for a lift, telling the agent or conductor the whole story, and I did it regularly at every station I passed on foot, only to get the customary oath or jeering laugh. After I had walked about sixty miles I came upon a water station known as Merton, with a goods train standing by. This time I asked for a ride on the tender. The engineer met my request with a vacant stare—never taking his pipe from his mouth. The fireman was a different sort of man. He not only listened to my story, but handed me part of the contents of his dinner pail wrapped up in a newspaper—which I was glad to get, and told him so. Before the train had gone fifty yards she was side-tracked for orders—which gave me another chance to get at the fireman. ‘I may lose my job if I do,’ he said, ‘but I’ve been up against it myself; come around a little later; it’ll be dark soon and something may turn up.’
“Something did turn up. While the engineer was oiling under his engine I got a wink from the fireman, climbed on the tender, crept beneath a tarpaulin, and rooted down in the coal. There, tired out, I fell asleep. I was awakened by the whistle of the locomotive, and then came the slow wheeze of the cylinder head, and we were off. Sleeping on a hard plank under a car going thirty miles an hour is a spring mattress to lying in a pile of coal with lumps as big as your head grinding into your back. Now and then the fireman—not my particular friend, but a man who had replaced him as I discovered when we whizzed past the light of a station—would ram his shovel within reach of my ribs—just missing me. But I didn’t mind—every mile meant that much nearer home and less tramping in the heat and dust to get there. If I could manage to keep hidden until we reached Sydney I should gain one hundred—maybe two hundred—miles before morning.
“About midnight we came to a halt, followed by a lot of backing and filling—shunting here and there. The safety-valve was thrown wide open, or the exhaust, or something else, and suddenly the steam went out of her. Then came a dead silence—not a sound of any kind. Sore as I was—and every bone in my body ached—I wrenched myself loose, lifted the edge of the tarpaulin, and peeped out. The engine and tender were backed up against a building which looked like a round-house; not a soul was in sight. I slid to the ground and began to peer around. After a moment I caught the swing of a lantern and heard the steps of a man. It was a watchman going his rounds.
“‘Warm night,’ he hollered when he came abreast of me. He evidently took me for a fireman, and I didn’t blame him, for I was black as soot—clothes, face, hands, and hair.
“‘Yes,’ I said, and stopped. It wouldn’t do to undeceive him. Then I remembered the name of the station where I had boarded the tender. ‘Been hot all the way from Merton. How far is that from Sydney?’
“‘Oh, a devil of a way!’ He lifted his lantern and held it to my face. ‘Say, you ain’t no fireman—you’re a hobo, ain’t ye?’
“I nodded.
“‘And you’re p’inted for Sydney? Well, it serves ye right for stealin’ a ride; you’re eighty-two miles further away than when ye started. That locomotive is a special and got return orders.’”
The Engineer threw back his head and roared.
“Yes, that’s it, Herbert. I remember just how you looked when we ran against each other in Sydney.”