The boy was right. The train was gradually slowing up at a spot where the track had branched into several switches. At last it came to a full stop.
“Now’s our chance to get off,” declared Joe. “We——”
“Keep still,” hissed Bob. “Somebody’s coming down the track. It may be a railroad policeman, or ‘bull,’ as the hoboes call them.”
“Let’s hide behind these boxes,” suggested Joe. “He may be coming in here.”
Quickly, yet quietly, the three concealed themselves in a corner of the box car. Then they waited.
The sound of someone walking grew louder, and the next moment a man stopped at the side of the box car. There was the sound of a door rolling forward, and then the click of a chain. Less than a minute later he was on his way up the tracks.
Hastily the hideaways slipped out from behind the boxes and into the center of the car.
Bob uttered an exclamation of dismay.
“That fellow locked the door!” he cried. “We’re trapped!”