The night was chilly but the air was clear.
They headed toward the back of the jailyard, going quietly so that they could pass the card players without being heard.
When they reached the corner of the fence Tim looked cautiously south, then north. He gave a sign that the street was clear and crossed with Red at his side. The railroad ran a block or so east, just beyond the gardens at the back of the houses that faced the jail.
The men dodged into an alley between two of the houses and found their path blocked by a shaft of lamplight coming from the first-floor window of the house on their right. The light marked a yellow rectangle on the clapboard wall of the other house. Tim was about to duck the window and move into the garden at the back when a dog started barking behind the house.
They waited quietly against the wall until the barking stopped, then retraced their steps. The street was still deserted, so they walked north at a moderate pace, turning to the left at the end of the block, rounding the corner of a darkened house and heading for the railroad track. The dog started barking again, and their impatience got the better of them. They ran along the side street, scrambled across the track and down the embankment and headed north.
The track passed through a thinly settled part of town, and as they moved Tim felt a sudden exhilaration. Now it seemed unlikely that they would be seen before they had gained the shelter of the woods.
The stars gleamed bright between moving clouds.
Now the embankment had disappeared and the ties lay on the ground, not sunken as they sometimes were. The men walked beside the rails, through a grove of trees, and—without the slightest warning—came on a tumble-down shack.
A good-sized dog was chained to a tree close by the shack and he barked and growled as if the devil was clawing at his throat.
