“I had an idea something was wrong with you two chaps,” frowned the conductor. “This man”—he nodded to the gray-bearded stranger—“got on at Leeville, so I thought I’d bring him forward to have a look at you. Surprising information he’s giving me. What have you got to say for yourselves?”
Sternness had crept into the conductor’s voice.
“The gentleman from Leeville is telling the truth,” replied Matt. “I and my chum were arrested by the constable and put in the Leeville town jail, but we twisted a bar from the window, crawled over the roof of a shed, and caught this train.”
“Well, well!” gasped the man from Leeville.
“You’ll get off at Stoughton, all right,” said the conductor, “but it’ll be for something beside sending a telegram.”
“Wait a minute, conductor,” begged Matt. “If you and the other gentleman have time to listen, I want to tell you just what happened. We’ll be as quick as we can.”
The conductor hesitated.
“There are two sides to a story, you know,” went on Matt earnestly. “You’ve got one side, and now, in justice to us, you ought to have ours.”
There was something in Matt’s steady gray eyes that lent a powerful appeal to his words. The conductor, turning back the forward seat, motioned to the man from Leeville to sit by the window.
“Now,” said the conductor, sitting down, “I haven’t got much time. We’ll be at Stoughton in fifteen minutes. Fire away.”