Binns was all aquiver on the instant. Suppose, in spite of Collins’s zeal and savagery, he should outwit him yet by catching this other train while he was searching this one! All the gameness of his youth and profession rose up in him. Without stopping to thank his informer, he leaped like a hare along the little path which cut diagonally across this lone field and which was evidently well worn by human feet. As he ran he wondered whether the genial conductor could possibly have lied to him to throw him off the track, and also if his enemy, seeing him running, had discovered his error by now and was following, granting that the conductor had told him the truth. He looked back occasionally, taking off his coat and glasses as he ran, and even throwing away his cane. Apparently Collins was still searching the other train. And now Binns at the same time, looking eagerly forward toward the other station, saw a semaphore arm which stood at right angles to the station lower itself for a clear track for some train. At the same time he also spied a mail-bag hanging out on a take-post arm, indicating that whatever this train was and whichever way it might be going, it was not going to stop here. He turned, still uncertain as to whether he had made a mistake in not searching the other train. Supposing the conductor had deliberately fooled him! Suppose Collins had made some preliminary arrangements of which he knew nothing? Suppose he had! Supposing the burglar were really on there, and even now Collins was busy with the opening questions of his interview, while he was here, behind! Oh Lord, what a beat! And he would have no reasonable explanation to offer except that he had been outwitted. What would happen to him? He slowed up in his running, chill beads of sweat bursting out on his face as he did so, but then, looking backward, he saw the train begin to move and from it, as if shot out of a gun, the significant form of Collins leap down and begin to run along this same path. Then, by George, the robber was not on it, after all! The conductor had told him the truth! Ha! Collins would now attempt to make this other train. He had been told that the bandit was coming in on this. Binns could see him speeding along the path at top speed, his hat off, his hands waving nervously about. But by now Binns had reached the station a good three minutes ahead of his rival.
Desperately he ran into it, a tiny thing, sticking his eager perspiring face in at the open office window, and calling to the stout, truculent little occupant of it:
“When is the East-bound M.P. express due here?”
“Now,” replied the agent surlily.
“Does it stop?”
“No, it don’t stop.”
“Can it be stopped?”
“No, it cannot!”
“You mean to say you have no right to stop it?”
“I mean I won’t stop it.”