Condon Adams glanced at his wrist watch.
“You haven’t much time to lose if you’re going to make that southbound local.”
Bob looked at his own watch. It was 2:45 o’clock. He closed his Gladstone bag and tightened the straps. Condon Adams walked ahead of him into the hall and then as far as the elevator.
“Don’t take too many chances, Bob, and keep your chin up. This thing is going to come out all right.”
Chapter XXVI
“DON’T MOVE!”
★
Bob wished that he could feel the confidence of Condon Adams’ words as he stepped into the elevator and dropped toward the main floor. At the desk he turned in his room key and then took a taxi to the same station where earlier in the night, in company with Condon Adams, he had captured two of the suspected gem smugglers.
The young federal agent purchased his ticket for Atalissa and the agent cautioned him about the change at the junction. Then Bob picked up his bag and walked through the now practically deserted waiting room and out into the train shed where a stubby, three car train was waiting for the final call of “booo-ard” to start its jerking journey southward. An express car and a combination baggage and mail car were behind the engine while the rear car was a dimly lighted coach.
Bob climbed up the steps. The seats were of green plush, and halfway up the interior of the car was a wooden partition which marked the forward end of the coach as the smoking compartment. There were only two people in the rear half and Bob turned one seat over so a double seat would be available. Then he stuck his ticket in his hat band, folded up his corduroy coat for a pillow, and curled up to make the best of the lonely trip to Atalissa.
The federal agent had dropped into a light sleep when the train started. He roused up long enough to hear it roll over a bridge and then he went back to sleep, failing to hear the conductor when he removed the ticket from the band of his hat.
The local jerked and stopped and then jerked into motion again. This operation was repeated a number of times, but Bob slept heavily through it all, for his body was near exhaustion. It was well after dawn when he finally moved and he groaned softly as the blood started flowing once more through his cramped legs.