“It was splendid,” responded O’Hara, “and you were the one man of all others upon whom suspicion would fall last. All the same you ran a risk.”
“All the same, Dan Dexter ran some risk when he saved my life out there in No-Man’s Land,” returned Will briefly. And seeming to feel that the final word had been said, he turned his undivided attention to the road.
O’Hara, too, all this time had been peering anxiously ahead, fearing to see through the heavy falling rain the headlight of the approaching locomotive. It did not appear, however, and even through the wildest part of the storm the little Ford plunged on.
“You’ll let me off at the water tank,” directed O’Hara, by this time so restless that he could hardly remain seated. “I’ll climb on the train from there,” and his long fingers trembled as they gripped the handbag on his knees.
Slowly and steadily, nearer to the junction came the Ford, although to the impatient man each turn of the wheel seemed an eternity.
The storm had made every landmark invisible. They had no way of gauging where they were. Still the wheels kept turning, turning; and that was at least something.
Then above the storm, above the noise of the engine, even above the loud beating of the refugee’s heart, there came to him the shrill shriek of a locomotive.
“We’re late—too late,” he almost shrieked; for at that moment he realized as never before, all that his liberty—the chance to start life again and to repay Danny—meant to him.
But Will White, accustomed as he was to his surroundings, had seen what the older man had failed to notice—the hulking shape of the water tower to their left.
Turning sharply, he ran the car over ditches, shying at a fence, full speed right up to the very track. Here he stopped abruptly with the emergency brake.