Where I was going and what I would do when I got there were thoughts that chased through my brain.
I tried to picture far off Arizona, with its mountains and barren deserts, and wondered if it would cure or benefit my asthma—I would go direct to Solomonsville, Arizona, where our State Treasurer, Lacy, had been cured.
Suddenly I sat up.
"What a fool I am," I muttered. "Sitting here in plain view, to be arrested at the first station we stop."
In a few moments I had dug out a large hole in the coal and crawled into it, placing the largest lumps around the edge of the opening to help shield me from view.
Every thing went well until about dark, when we reached the small town of Chadbourn, N. C., fifty-seven miles from Wilmington.
Here the man at the pump house, which is located close to the depot, had seen an uncovered foot, and called the conductor's attention to it.
The conductor, who was a good sort of a man, had discovered my presence on the train long before reaching Chadbourn, and so had others of the train's crew. The man in the baggage car was even taking care of my bundles, which he had allowed me to deposit in a corner of the car.
Unaware of the fact that I had been discovered, I lay perfectly still, afraid to move hand or foot, and it seemed to me the train would never start.