They went outside and Jim, the tallest of the crowd, was boosted up by a couple of trainmen, between the swaying cars (this was long before the days of vestibules), but they found no trace of the bandit.
"He's certainly not roosting up there," declared Jim.
"Well, if he jumped off, he's a dead greaser," asserted the conductor.
"We will watch and see that he don't slide off at the next station," remarked one of the brakemen.
"He couldn't have slipped under one of the cars, could he?" questioned Jim.
The conductor shook his head with emphasis.
"There's no telling what that fellow mightn't do," said one of the trainmen.
"With the devil to help him," put in Jim.
"To make sure we will search under the train," decided the conductor, "at the next stop."
In a few minutes the train rolled into a small station, near the top of the range. There was a flare of yellow torches under the cars as the trainmen searched every possible foothold, while Jim stood a short distance back so that he could see on either side of the train if a short, dark figure should dart forth to seek escape in the wilds of the mountains; but their quarry was not flushed into the open, even by the flare and glare of the torches.