The boy had to wait but a little while for the accommodation, which was on time, and stepping aboard, he was soon homeward bound. He was absorbed in meditations when he was roused from his rather unpleasant reverie by the voice of the conductor, who had taken a seat near by him to chat a few minutes with a friend.
"It is a strange coincidence, Sam, and it puts me in mind of an adventure I had several years ago, and which came near punching my through ticket."
"An adventure, Henry? Give us the story."
"As soon as we have passed Greenburn. I shall have plenty of leisure then."
Without dreaming how soon he should recall it with startling vividness, our hero, with a boy's interest, listened to the conductor's story:
"Ten years ago I was engineer on the Tehicipa and Los Angeles Road, a branch of the Southern Pacific. Those were troublesome times. What with the guerillas and Indians that infested the country, to say nothing of other dangers, we never knew when we were safe, if we ever were.
"One evening—just about such an evening as this, too—we had barely stopped at a way station when some one rushed up to the train and said Gray Gerardo's band was coming to attack us.
"Gerardo was considered the worst desperado in that lawless country, and knowing we had a lot of the yellow ore on board, I knew the outlaw was after it.
"The conductor cut our stop short, but before I could get under way the outlaws were upon us. From their sounds one would have thought all the fiends from the lower world had been let loose.