“I suppose they hadn’t counted on any such luck; had probably intended to overpower her before you got back, sir, and the storm saved them the trouble.” “I’d have give them a run for the money,” Mrs. Bybee retorted grimly, her skinny old hand knotting into a menacing fist. “That’s just what I did,” David grinned rather whitely at her. “I yelled at them to stop, because I had an idea they’d been up to something, since they’d jumped off this car, and I knew Nita had no business on the train, since all you people were sleeping on the lot. “They were carrying a couple of suitcases that looked suspiciously heavy to me. It flashed over me that Mrs. Bybee, being treasurer of the outfit, must have left a lot of money in her stateroom, and that Nita and this Steve chap had been planning to rob her when Sally and I heard them talking the other night. I started after them, still yelling for them to stop, and Steve turned and fired at me. He missed me, lucky for me, and I kept right on. “About a hundred yards beyond the end of the train they climbed into a car that was parked on the road that runs alongside the tracks and after telling me goodby with another bullet that missed me, too, Steve had the car started. I was about to give up and start toward Capital City to notify the police when I noticed there was a handcar on the tracks, just where this spur joins the main line. “I threw the switch and in a minute I had the handcar on the main line and was pumping along after them. The state road parallels the railroad track for about five or six miles, you know, and I could make nearly as good time in my handcar as they could in their flivver, for it’s a down grade nearly all the way.” He paused, his eyes closing wearily as if every muscle in his body ached with the memory of that terrible ride in the dead of night. “Better rest awhile, Dave,” Pop Bybee suggested gently, bending over the boy to wipe the cold drops of sweat from his forehead. “No, I’ll get it over with,” David protested weakly. “There’s not much more to tell. They couldn’t see me—had no idea I was trailing them in the handcar. But I could keep them in sight because of their headlights. I guess they’d have got away, though, if a freight train hadn’t come along just then and blocked the road. They were just reaching the grade crossing where the state road cuts the railroad tracks when this freight came charging down on us—” “But you, David!” Sally shuddered, bowing her head on his hand, the fingers of which curled upward weakly to cup her face. “You were on the track. Did the train hit you? Oh!” “Of course not!” David grinned at her. “I’m here, and I wouldn’t have been if the engine had hit the handcar when I was on it. But I’m afraid the railroad company is minus one handcar this morning. The cowcatcher of the freight engine scooped it up and tossed it aside as if it had been a baby’s go-cart, but I’d already jumped and was tumbling down the bank into a nice bed of wildflowers.