Presently he heard an elevated train roar overhead, and he knew where he was. "Greenwich street or Ninth avenue," he said to himself. As they still held to their car-line he knew they were bound up-town; headed the other way, they would have reached the end of the island before this. Bye and bye they coasted down a long hill and puffed up the other side. He guessed this to be the valley between Ninety-third street and One Hundred and Fourth, and presently knew he was right, when he heard the wheels of the elevated trains grinding on a curve high overhead. The Hundred and Tenth street curve, of course; there is no other such curve on the island.
The car turned to the right and then to the left again, still running in the rails. "Eighth avenue now," he said to himself, "and still heading north."
Later he heard a car-gong of a different timbre and the unmistakable hiss of a trolley wheel on its wire. There are no overhead wires on Manhattan Island except at the several points where the off-island railways terminate. "Union railway," Evan said to himself. "We've reached the Harlem river." Sure enough, they passed over a draw-bridge; the double clank-clank of the draw could not be mistaken. "Central Bridge," thought Evan.
But in the smoothly paved streets of the Bronx he lost every clue to his whereabouts. They ran in the car tracks for a while, then left them; they made several right and left turns and crossed other tracks. Evan guessed they were in a well-travelled motor highway for he heard other cars, but that told him nothing; there are a dozen such highways radiating from Central Bridge.
He lay against the feet and legs of his two captors. He listened eagerly for any talk between them that might furnish him with a clue. But if they conversed it must have been in whispers. On one occasion, though, he heard him of the milder voice say:
"He's so quiet! Do you suppose he's all right?"
"Search me!" was the indifferent response. "His body is hot enough on my feet, I know."
"Hadn't I better look at him?"
"Sure! And print your face on his memory forever!"
"I believe that comforter is half suffocating him."