CHAPTER VII
THE cot was hard and narrow, and it had sides of unpadded boards. For hours Fred lay pretending to be asleep, that he might shirk the sheer torture of conversation with his friend. Through partly closed eyelids he watched the railroad man as he sat in the doorway looking out at the rapidly shifting night view. When a station was reached the conductor would spring up, and with his lantern swinging in his hand he would descend to the ground and wave his light or call out an order to a switchman or the man at the brakes. Then the creaking, mechanical reptile would crawl along and speed away again. Several times the miserable passenger dozed off into most delectable dreams. In them he was always with Margaret in some fragrant spot among flowers, by flowing streams, and in wondrous sunshine. Once he saw General Sylvester and his grim old father in congenial converse together, while he and Margaret stood hand in hand near by, and then his beautiful, haughty sweetheart put her arms about the grizzled neck of the man who had never known affection and kissed him. But she was fading away, as was the erect old soldier, and the dreamer found himself before his father at the old man's desk in the bank. And now Simon Walton's face was dark as night. A ledger lay open before him. “Five thousand dollars of my hard-earned money!” the old man shrieked. “And you deliberately stole it from my vault! Thief! Thief! Thief!” Simon's lips continued to move, but no sound save a dismal, mechanical rumbling issued. There was a long scream of the steam-whistle, a thunderous bumping of cars one against another, the rasping rattle of brake-chains, a glare of yellow light, and Fred saw Thomas standing over him, his lantern's rays thrown downward.
“In the yard at last, old chap,” the conductor said, as he took his lantern apart and blew out the flame, “but don't you get up. You haven't had enough sleep, and it is only five o'clock. You didn't rest well in that blamed bunk. You kept rolling and jabbering in your sleep. I've got to run up-town, but the cab will stand right here on the side-track all day, and you can leave it whenever you like. I'll be about the general freight-office till noon, and if you want me, look me up.”
“All right. You are mighty good, Jack,” the wanderer said, appalled and stupefied by his sudden awakening to the grim reality of his condition.
When the conductor had left, and unable, through sheer mental agony, to go back to sleep, Walton crawled out of the bunk and stood up. His legs, arms, and neck were stiff, and twinges of pain darted through his muscles as he moved. Standing in the open door, he looked out over the vast stretch of railway tracks. The gray light of dawn shrouded everything. Over the tops of cars, heaps of old scrap-iron, blinking vari-colored signal-lights, and bridges which spanned the tracks he saw the spectre-like outlines of the State Capitol's drab dome, and farther to the left the tall office-buildings in the centre of the city.
Just then a man came round the end of the car, and, with a start of surprise, recognized him. It was a railway mail-carrier who had once lived at Stafford. “Why, hello, Fred!” he cried, rubbing his eyes, for he had just risen from his bed. “What are you doing down this way at break of day?”
Walton hesitated; a tinge of color came into his pale face.
“Ran down for a trip with Jack Thomas,” he answered; “this is his cab.”
“Oh yes—I see. Where is Jack?”