"There's a freight train going up," said a brakeman.
"When?" asked Tom, eagerly.
"In about half an hour. It'll be slow, though. You'll get to Homer about eleven, if that'll do you."
Tom could only hope it might.
After a ride made long by anxiety he stood at last before Sheriff Carroll, and presented his letter, waiting breathlessly to hear what he might say.
"Too bad! too bad! I discharged those scamps not more than an hour ago. Tell your father, though, that we may stand a chance of nabbing them yet. I'll have all the trains watched, and send out on the country roads. That sort are very apt to strike across country." He bustled away to set things moving, while Tom, full of bitter mortification, slowly walked back to the station.
He watched eagerly as the return train came in, in hope of seeing some kind of a "scrimmage," as he mentally expressed it, which might look like an arrest. But nothing of the sort occurred. He did not even see a force of policemen drawn up with threatening aspect, as he had expected, and made up his mind that Carroll was not up to his duty in this matter. His inexperienced gaze failed to take note of two or three keen-eyed men standing carelessly around in plain clothes, who would certainly have pressed the hospitalities of the village of Homer upon any stray criminals so warmly as to enable them to arrive at a speedy decision to travel no further at present.
As Tom rode along, he felt too much depressed at first by the very bad result of his undertaking to pay much heed to what was going on around him. But he suddenly jerked himself from the corner into which he had settled, and sat up with every sense on the alert.
"I told Primrose—revenged on him—jury agreed—got off—that I would go down—have it out with him—"
This was what came to his ears, mingled with the rattle of the cars. The words were spoken by one of two men who occupied the seat behind him. Tom ventured a peep over the back of his seat. They certainly did not look like desperate characters; but what was he to think of what he had heard? His father had made special mention of the very respectable appearance of the two men he had been prosecuting.