On his way back home he made a detour to go by the railroad tracks. It was about time for the morning freight to pass by, and he enjoyed watching the long train labor slowly up a hill which was about a mile from the farm. Arriving at a good point of vantage near a stream at the foot of the hill, he dismounted to sit by the roadside. Ticktock grazed contentedly while Jim chewed on a long stem of grass.
In a few minutes the train came whistling around the bend at full speed, trying for a head start up the hill. Jim counted the cars as they appeared, his largest total was fifty-seven and he had hoped this freight would break the record, for the engine slowed and began laboring the moment it hit the upgrade. As the sixteenth car appeared around the curve, he forgot about counting. A figure was running along the top of the boxcars toward the engine, looking frantically over his shoulder every few minutes. About ten cars later Jim saw the cause of the excitement. A second man was pursuing the first, but the latter did not seem particularly worried.
“Railroad cop,” thought Jim. “He’s trying to catch that hobo.”
The first man apparently realized that he didn’t have too far to run before he reached the engine. He stopped in his flight and began clambering down the side of one of the freight cars. The train had slowed considerably now that it was part way up the hill. The man looked down at the ground and then up at the car tops where his pursuer was hidden from view. Then he jumped. The leap occurred almost at the point where the tracks crossed the trestle over the stream. Jim could not tell if the man landed on the ground or in the water. In either case, he must be badly shaken up, for although the train had lost much of its speed it was still traveling at a respectable rate.
It was several hundred yards to the trestle, so, deciding that it would be quicker to ride than to walk, Jim dashed for his horse. Unfortunately, Ticktock had strayed up the road looking for choice bunches of clover. By the time Jim had run to his horse, mounted, and then ridden over to the trestle, several minutes had elapsed. Pulling Ticktock to a dust-raising stop that would have done credit to a Western movie, Jim slid to the ground. There was no mangled corpse in sight. He rushed to the edge of the bank bordering the stream and peered down. Still there was nothing to be seen. As there were a number of bushes, weeds and stunted trees on the steep banks, whoever had jumped might be lying unconscious behind some clump. There was nothing to do but make a search.
Jim climbed up and down the sloping sides of the stream covering the area where anyone might possibly have fallen. When his efforts turned out to be fruitless, he decided there could be only one other solution. If the man had landed in the stream, there was sufficient water to carry him along to the shallows on the other side of the bridge. Although the water was only a few feet deep, an injured or unconscious man could drown. Working his way downstream under the bridge, Jim reached the shallows about a hundred yards on the other side of the tracks without finding any body. Puzzled, he decided to give up the search. Perhaps he had just imagined someone had jumped. As he was slowly making his way back, he heard the sound of rapid hoofbeats. Panic-stricken, he rushed as fast as he could along the slanting banks. He clambered to the top and looked around for Ticktock. The mustang was gone.
He looked up the road and there disappearing in the distance was his beloved horse. Hunched over the pony’s back, urging him to greater speed, was the figure of a man.
“Come back, you dirty horse thief!” screamed Jim at the top of his lungs, with rage and panic in his voice.
He continued to shout uselessly as the figure of the horse and rider grew smaller in the distance. Finally a curve in the road hid them from view. Heartbroken, Jim sat down by the side of the road. He buried his face in his hands and his body shook with sobs. It was a disaster much worse than any he could possibly have imagined. His beloved mustang had been stolen. He sat by the roadside for a long time before he looked up. The cheery sunshine of a few minutes earlier had suddenly become hard and bitter. The bright world had turned ugly, drab and cruel.