"No, of course not."
"No matter. I said I would redeem it, and I am going to do so by putting you on to a mighty soft snap. I'm bound to the southward myself, and, as it happens, there is a sort of a boarding-car going to pull out of here for somewhere down the line in about half an hour. It is in charge of the cook, and as he and I are on what you might call extra good terms, he is going to let me ride with him as far as he goes. There won't be a soul on board but him and me, unless I can persuade him to let you two boys come along with us. What do you say?"
"I say you are a trump, and if you'll only work that racket for us, I'll share half the money with you that I'm to get from Rick as soon as we reach San Francisco."
"Oh ho! He is to give you money, is he?"
"Yes; that is, he has promised me one hundred dollars to make up for the wages I leave behind, if I'll only get him there."
For the next half-hour that shabbily attired stranger was the busiest man in Tacoma, and he kept a great many other people busy at the same time. Finally, just as the boys were beginning to think he had forgotten them, he appeared at the door of the freight car, and said, in a loud whisper: "Come, quick. I think they are after you."
As the boys scrambled out, he started on a run toward a single car that, with an engine attached, stood on a siding in the darkest corner of the railroad yard. Here he hurriedly whispered to them to crouch low on its rear platform until it started, when the cook would open the door. Then he disappeared.
In another moment the car began to move, and directly afterward the door was opened. There seemed to be no light in the interior, and, without seeing any one, the boys heard a strange voice, evidently that of a negro, bidding them come in out of the cold.
They entered the car, Alaric going first, and were led through a narrow passage into what was evidently a large compartment. They heard their guide retreating through the passage, and were beginning to feel rather uneasy, when suddenly they were surrounded and dazzled by a great flood of electric light.