“Had to go up-town.”
“You haven't had your breakfast yet, I'll bet. Come on and take a snack with me. There is a good all-night eating-house up by the Viaduct.”
“Thanks, I've got to hang around here for a while.”
“Well, so long!” the man said, with a backward look of perplexity, as he moved away. “I'll see you uptown, I reckon.”
Walton stood down on the ground and looked about him; then he saw something that drove him back into the car. It was a policeman in uniform a hundred yards away. He seemed to emerge from the cattle-yard on the left, and was walking along slowly, looking under cars and trying their sliding doors. He would stoop to the cross-ties and peer carefully at the trucks, and move on again to repeat the process at each car of the long train, the engine of which was fired for leaving. Walton sank to a seat on the cot; the man was searching for him. There would be no escape. Presently a feeling of relief came to him in the reflection that his fears were ungrounded, for his father, not having read the letter he had left on his desk, could not yet know of his flight. The old man never went to the bank earlier than eight in the morning, and it could not now be later than five. Yes, the officer was looking for some one else. The fugitive breathed more freely for a few minutes; then another shock quickly followed the first. It was now plain—horribly plain. His father, having sent him to the bank for a statement of his account the evening before, had waited up for him, his impatience and suspicion growing as the hours passed. Old Simon could not have slept while a matter of that nature remained unsettled. He had waited, pacing the floor of his room, till nine; till ten; till eleven; and then, full of gravest alarm as to the safety of his funds, he had gone down to the bank to ascertain the cause of the delay. In his mind's eye, Fred saw the grim old financier as he stalked muttering through the silent streets of the slumbering town. He saw him open the big door of the bank, and heard his disappointed growl as he faced the darkness. Old Simon, with fumbling hands, found and struck a match; then he groped his way back to his office and lighted the gas. Fred saw him as he stared round the room, and, with the gasp of an animal, pounced on the letter he had written; he saw, as if he had been on the spot, the distorted, terrified face of the bewildered old miser. Then what had he done? He had gone quaking and whimpering to the home of the sheriff near by; he had waked the officer by pounding on the door, and ordered the immediate pursuit of his son as an absconding thief. The telegram had left Stafford before midnight; it had passed the fugitive as he slept, and the policeman now looking under the cars was only one of scores who were bent upon hunting him down. Yes, it was all over. There was nothing left now but to be taken back to Stafford, handcuffed as a common felon. He crept to the car door and looked out. The policeman had paused in his search, and was coming directly across to him. A feeling of odd and almost soothing resignation came over the young man; at any rate, he would not hide like a coward. He was guilty, and he would take his punishment. So he sank upon the bench at the door and calmly eyed the officer as he crossed the tracks, playfully swinging the polished club which was strapped to his wrist.
“Good-morning!” the man said, looking up. “You are not the conductor of this train, are you?”
“No,” Fred answered, wonderingly; “he's just gone up-town.”
The policeman swung his club. “Got a match in your pocket? I want to smoke so bad I can taste it.”
Walton fumbled in his pocket and produced some matches, and, still wondering, he reached over and put them into the extended hand. The man in uniform was young, clear of skin and eye, and had a good face—a face which Walton no longer dreaded, which, indeed, he felt that he could like.
“Tough job I'm on now, you can bet your life,” the policeman said, as he struck the match on the iron ladder of the car and applied it to a half-smoked cigar.