Just at that moment a distant whistle was heard.
“A train!” exclaimed McGlory. “If it stops here, Matt, why can’t we——”
Matt caught the inspiration of his chum’s words. Again fortune was favoring him and McGlory. There was a chance to escape, but they would have to be quick if they took advantage of it.
“Crawl through the window, Joe!” whispered Matt. “Be wary! The jig’s up if we’re seen.”
The cowboy began at once crowding himself through the bars. He succeeded, and alighted on the roof of the shed on hands and knees. Matt followed, made his way carefully over the top of the shed, dropped from the edge of the roof, and found himself beside his chum at the rear of the hardware store.
The train was just pulling into the station. Without losing a moment, the boys scrambled over a fence, skirmished onward under the screen of the flat car, dodged beneath it, raced across the narrow stretch separating the spur from the main track, and climbed aboard the forward coach of the train.
The station was on the other side of the cars, and, so far as the boys could discover, not an inhabitant of the village had seen them.
Where the train was going they did not know; but they did know that it would halt at a more friendly town than Leeville, that there would be a telegraph office in the town, and that they could forward their message to New York.
“In and out of Leeville,” murmured the cowboy, as he and Matt sank breathlessly into a seat. “I reckon old Bill Hawkins will have another guess coming, eh?”