“Every inch of it. I was in a hurry, and I’m in a hurry yet. Mostly I rode the top, and sometimes the blind, and once I tried the trucks, but next time I’ll walk first. The beast of a conductor found that I was there, and poured ashes down between the cars.”
“You’re a genius,” said Elliott, looking at the audacious traveller with admiration. “That’s beyond me.”
“Not a bit of it. I don’t do this sort of thing professionally, nor you, either. Excuse me, I can see that you’re no more a bum than I am. But a man ought to be able to do anything,—beat the hobo at his own game if he’s driven to it. I simply had to get to Nashville, and I hadn’t the money for a ticket. I did it, or I’ve nearly done it, and you could have done it, too.
“Of course you could,” he went on, as Elliott looked doubtful. “Come with me in the morning, if you’re game, and I’ll guarantee to land you in St. Louis by eight o’clock.”
“Oh, I’m game all right,” cried Elliott, “if you’re sure I won’t be troubling you.”
“Didn’t I say that I’m going, anyway. I mighty seldom let anybody trouble me. Now look here: the fast train from Omaha gets here a little before three, daylight. You meet me at the passenger depot at, say, three o’clock. Better get as much sleep as you can before that, for you sure won’t get any after it.”
He glanced at Elliott with a smile that had the effect of a challenge. “Oh, I won’t back out,” Elliott assured him. “I’ll be there, sharp on time. So long, till morning.”
Elliott went away a little puzzled by his new comrade, and not altogether satisfied. The young fellow—he did not know his name—evidently was in possession of an almost infernal degree of energy. Plainly he was no “bum,” as he had said; it was equally plain that he was, undeniably, not quite a gentleman; and, plainest of all, that he was a man of much experience of the world and ability to take care of himself in it. Elliott could not quite place him. He was a little like a professional gambler down on his luck. It was quite possible that he was a high-class crook escaping from the scene of his latest exploit, and it was this consideration that roused Elliott’s uneasiness. It was bad enough, he thought, to be obliged to dodge yard watchmen and railway detectives without risking arrest for another man’s safe-cracking.
Still, the association would last only for a few hours, and he went to bed that night resolved to carry the agreement through. He was staying at a cheap hotel, and there were times when he would have regarded its appointments as impossible, but it struck him just now that he had never known before what luxury was. It was four nights since he had slept in a bed, and, as he stretched himself luxuriously between the sheets, the idea of getting up at three o’clock seemed a fantastic impossibility.
A thundering at the door made it real, however. He had left orders at the desk to be called, and he pulled his watch from under the pillow. There was no mistake; it was three o’clock, and, shivering and still sleepy, he got up and lighted the gas.