“Then I wish you would lead the horse till we get to the car. Cadmus seems to have taken quite a fancy to you.”
“He belongs in a car?” asked Dave, a little vaguely.
“Why, yes,” replied the man, with a stare at Dave as if he supposed he knew that. “We’re taking Cadmus to Brompton. They switched us in the yards, and some one left the car door open, and Cadmus made his break.”
“Oh, I understand now,” said Dave quickly, and then an eager thought came into his mind, as he wondered if this lucky incident might lead to his finding a way out of Brookville unnoticed.
The last cookie in Dave’s hands kept Cadmus quiet and friendly until they reached the railroad yards. The man piloted the way among a network of tracks, and finally along a string of freight cars standing beside a planked roadway.
“Here we are,” he reported.
Dave noticed that the man had halted beside a light colored car bearing the words: “Palace Horse Car.” A small colored boy dressed in a horse jockey’s jacket, and a big husky fellow who looked like the hostler, were tilting a slanting platform up to the big door at one end of the car.
It took some persuasion to get Cadmus to go up this cleated platform, but it was finally accomplished. Dave looked around the car with some admiration.
“It deserves its name, ‘Palace’, doesn’t it,” he asked of the owner of the horse, who seemed greatly relieved to find the animal housed once more safe and sound.
“You ought to see the accommodations we have in a trip across the continent,” returned the horseman. “This is nothing to it.”