“Well,” said one of the guards, “we don’t just exactly know. We reckon the brake got off somehow. Mebby a dog run agin the car with his nose and started it, or something like 17 that,” and the man rolled up his eyes. There was a loud laugh at this, as everybody understood that the guards had loosened the brake and given the car a start, and they all saw that it was a good way to get rid of the man inside. Tom Carr, the station agent, said that, if the wind held, the car would not stop short of the grade beyond Siding No. 15.
“My experience with the country,” said Sours, “is that the wind always holds and don’t do much else. It wouldn’t surprise me if it carried him clean through to Chicago.”
I went back to the barn and sat down in the office. To tell the truth, I felt easier that Pike was gone. I well knew that he had no love for me. I sat a long time thinking over what had happened since I had come to Track’s End. It seemed, as if things had crowded one another so much that I had scarcely had time to think at all. I little guessed all the time for thinking that I was going to have before I got away from the place.
While I was sitting there on the bench an old gentleman came in and asked something about getting a team with which to drive into the country. There was a livery stable in 18 town kept by a man named Munger and a partner whose name I have forgotten; but their horses were all out. The Headquarters barn was mainly for the teams of people who put up at the hotel, but Sours had two horses which we sometimes let folks have. After the old gentleman had finished his business he asked me my name, and then said:
“Well, Judson, you did the right thing in pointing out that desperado the other night. I’m pleased to know you.”
My reply was that I couldn’t very well have done otherwise than I did after what I saw.
“But there’s many that wouldn’t have done it, just the same,” answered the old gentleman. “Knowing the kind of a man he is, it was very brave of you. My name is Clerkinwell. I run the Bank of Track’s End, opposite the Headquarters House. I hope to hear further good reports of you.”
He was a very courtly old gentleman, and waved his hand with a flourish as he went out. You may be sure I was tickled at getting such words of praise from no less a man than a banker. I hurried and took the team around to the bank, and had a good look at it. It 19 was a small, square, two-story wooden building, like many of the others, with large glass windows in the front, through which I could see a counter, and behind it a big iron safe.
I had given up sleeping in the house, with its squirrel-cage rooms, preferring the soft prairie hay of the barn. But when bedtime came this night Mr. Clerkinwell had not returned, so I sat up to wait for the team. He had told me that he might be late. It was past midnight when he drove up to the barn.
“Good-evening, Judson,” said he. “So you waited for me.”