“Hello! here’s a man under this car.”
“Well, get him out,” said another, with a sharp tone of authority. “He is probably one of the rascally strikers who planned this mischief, and then got caught in his own trap. Carry him to the baggage-car and see that he does not get away. I will investigate his case directly. Now look lively here with those spikes and hammers.”
Myles was lifted by half a dozen active young fellows clad in a close-fitting gray uniform and carried back to the train, where he was laid on the floor of the baggage-car, with his head on a roll of blankets. Even as they started with him he heard the ringing blows of the spike-hammers, and almost as soon as they laid him down the loosened rails were securely re-fastened and the train was ready to proceed.
Myles was surprised to find that he did not suffer any pain denoting broken bones. He wondered if he were able to sit up, and, by trying, found that he was. In short, with the exception of feeling stiff and sore and bruised, and lame in every joint, he was all right. He was only a little shaky, and he next proceeded to stand up to assure himself that he could do that also. Here the gray-jacketed soldier who guarded him concluded that his prisoner was getting altogether too active, and sternly ordered him to sit still and keep quiet.
Myles looked at him with indignant amazement. Was this the kind of treatment a fellow had to expect in return for risking his own life and limbs to save those of these chaps? He was about to express himself pretty forcibly on the subject, when the car door was opened and a soldierly-looking man, with an iron-gray mustache and wearing the eagles of a colonel on his shoulder-straps, entered. The guard presented arms and the colonel touched his cap in acknowledgment of the salute. Then stepping briskly up to Myles he said:
“Well, sir, who are you? and what is the meaning of all this? Do you know that you have committed a State-prison offense, and that hanging would be no more than you deserve?”
“What is my offense?” asked Myles, quietly, still sitting on the roll of blankets.
“Don’t bandy words with me, sir; but answer my questions at once. Who are you?”
Myles gazed calmly into the colonel’s face, but remained silent.