It proved a very long five miles to the next station, and he was wet through and stumbling with weariness when he reached it. The village was pitch-dark; not a light burned about the station except the steady switch-lamps; not a freight-car stood upon the siding. There was not even a roof over the platform, and, too tired to look for shelter, Elliott dropped upon a pile of lumber by the track, and went heavily to sleep in the rain.
The hideous clangour of a passing express-train awoke him; he was growing accustomed to such awakenings. It was an hour from sunrise. Close to him stood the little red station and a great water-tank. The village was still asleep among the dripping trees. Not a smoke arose from any chimney.
It had stopped raining, and the east was clearer. Elliott was wet through, cold and stiff, and he found his feet sore and swollen. He was not in training for so much pedestrian exercise, and he had overdone it.
But the solitary hotel of the village awoke early, and Elliott did not have to wait long for breakfast. Shortly after sunrise, strengthened with hot coffee, he was renewing the march, finding every step exquisitely painful. The romance of this sort of vagabondage was fast evaporating, and the thought of the seventy dollars that he had wasted in St. Joseph infuriated him.
When the sun rose high enough to dry his garments, he sat down, removed his coat, and steamed gently. After this respite the pain in his blistered soles was worse than ever, but he trudged stoically on. After an hour it grew dulled till he scarcely noticed it, and about noon he reached Redwood.
Near the station there was a small lunchroom, where Elliott satisfied his appetite, and he returned to the railway, sat upon a pile of ties, lighted his pipe, and reflected. The endless line of shining rails running eternally eastward was loathsome to his eyes.
“I’ve overdone it at the start. I ought to lie up and rest for a day or two,” he said to himself. But even walking appeared preferable to idling in the scraggly village, and he suddenly determined that he would neither idle nor yet walk, but nevertheless he would be in Hannibal in two days.
He sat on the pile of ties for over an hour. A ponderous freight-train dragged up to the station, went upon the siding and waited till the fast express flashed past without stopping. Then the freight got clumsily under way again with a tremendous clank and clamour. At it rolled slowly past, Elliott saw a side door half-open. He ran after it, swung himself up by his elbows, and tumbled head first into the car.
The train went on, gradually gaining speed. There were loose handfuls of corn scattered about the car from its last load. Elliott slid the door almost shut and sat down on the floor, wondering if the crew had seen him get aboard.
The train was attaining a considerable speed and the car was flung over the rails with shattering jolts. Through the cranny of the door Elliott saw trees and fields sweep by, and he was considering pleasantly that he had already travelled an hour’s walk, when a heavy trampling of feet sounded on the roof of the pitching car.