"I smelled a rat when I came through this car a time back. You say you caught sight of this fellow when he escaped from your section?"
"Yes," replied Jim. "It was dark of course. But when he slipped through the curtains I got a glimpse of him. He was very short, with a hat pulled down, hiding most of his face, but I think that he had a beard. I reckon he must be in here somewhere for I found both doors locked and I was out in a hurry."
"Here you get in there, Porter," cried the conductor, his face red with wrath, and he gave the negro a shove into the smoking-room, and slammed and locked the door. "That will hold him for a while. I saw that fellow all right enough. He was a Mexican and he got on at Reno."
"A Mexican!" cried Jim, starting back. "No, it can't be, this fellow had a beard."
"Sure! he had a beard!" agreed the conductor. "Well if he is on this train we will get him."
"He couldn't be anywhere else," declared Jim.
"Not at the rate we are going," agreed the conductor. "This is no country to jump off in, especially this time of the year."
A thorough search was made of the sleeper which aroused all the passengers, but the Mexican was not found. However, a trace was discovered when the conductor unlocked the tall, narrow door, to the linen closet.
"Somebody has been here all right," declared the conductor. "I bet he hid here when I came through the train. Something is liable to happen to that Coon when we get to Oakland."
Meanwhile the search was going on through the other cars of the train. Nearly everyone had been asleep at the time and the fellow might have passed through a number of the coaches and not been seen. One woman in the chair car declared that she had seen someone just like the Mexican going through the car, about one o'clock.