With the throttle open a car's length is a serious matter to the man on the ground, but I caught the third car safely and climbed aboard.
Chadbourn was left like a flash, and a few moments later we went hurling through Grice like a shot out of a gun.
The train was a through freight, and we were bound for Florence.
Crawling back on my hands and knees through the darkness several car lengths, I found an empty coal car. In this car I would be shielded from most of the cold wind, which was blowing at a terrific rate over the top of the train.
Carefully descending to the car and peering over the edge I was surprised to find another passenger, a mild looking mulatto, who, upon finding that I was not a brakeman, as he at first had supposed, became quite sociable.
"I'm also bound for Jacksonville," said he, "and we'll go along together."
The proposal suited me to a T, as he added that he was an expert at the business, having been over the same road several times before, and knew every move to make to avoid being "nabbed."
The other two men now got into the car, at which the mulatto immediately drew off to the opposite end.
"Two together is safer," he said, as I joined him.