Boss Burton, in his underclothes, was standing in the aisle, a smoking revolver in his hand.
"Confound the luck!" he sputtered. "The Hindoo has made a getaway. I happened to wake up and to think about him, and took a look along the aisle from my berth, just to make sure he was safe. I thought I was dreaming, or had the blind staggers, or something, when I saw him sitting up. His hands were free and he was taking the rope off his feet. I grabbed my revolver from under my pillow and rolled into the aisle. Dhondaram had started for the door. I blazed away, did nothing but smash a window, and the Hindoo jumped from the train."
"Are you going to stop and put back after him?" inquired Archie Le Bon.
"I guess I won't, although losing the fellow is a bit of a backset," observed Burton regretfully.
"The show can stand all the backsets of that kind that come its way, Burton," said Harris.
"What will we do for somebody to manage Rajah?"
"Oh, hang Rajah!" said another of the Le Bon brothers. "I hope the first section runs into the ditch and smashes the brute. He came within one of killin' Archie, back there in Jackson."
It was the general opinion, as the occupants of the various berths drew sleepily back into their beds, that it was a good thing Dhondaram escaped.
"Wonder just how much that bit of a backset means for us, pard?" McGlory inquired of the king of the motor boys before dropping back on his pillow.
"Nothing, I hope," was the response.