“Oh, no, Deacon! He wouldn’t do such a thing!”
“Woman, I tell you he did!” cried the deacon in his most thundering tones. “He’s robbed us and run away! I’ll get the law after him! The thief!” and with a face flushed with wrath the deacon proceeded to dress, muttering the while:
“He robbed us! Joe robbed us and ran away! I always knew that the circus and magician blood in him would tell! Now it’s come out with a vengeance!”
CHAPTER XII
THE PROFESSOR’S ASSISTANT
Joe Strong slid half-way across the “side-door Pullman,” as he had called the freight car into which he had jumped from the station platform. One cause for his sliding was the force of his jump, the momentum carrying him. Another reason was because the floor of the car was covered with bits of dried hay, which is always slippery.
“A hay car!” exclaimed Joe, as his nose caught the odor that was so familiar to him. “Been loaded with baled hay. I’m glad I struck something as clean as that. Might just as well have jumped into a car that had been filled with fertilizer, or something else not nice to smell all night. Yes, I guess I’m in luck.”
The train was now swinging along at a good pace, and Joe proceeded to make himself comfortable for his long ride which, at best, was not going to be any too easy for him.
The youth chuckled to himself as he thought of the two town policemen vainly seeking him.
“That’s another time I gave Hen Sylvester the slip,” murmured Joe with a smile in the darkness.
Though the hay car had been unloaded there still remained on the floor a quantity of the fodder. With his feet Joe made this into a pile in one corner, and there he intended to lie down to get some sleep if he could. The night was warm, and he needed no covering. But he slid the door partly shut to keep out some of the dirt and cinders.