“I don’t know how I’m going to stand it,” he said ruefully. “I’ll choke pretty soon. I’d ought to have brought a bottle of soda water along. I’ll know better next time. I can’t get out now. The train’s going too fast.” The car was swaying from side to side, and to jump from it was out of the question. There was nothing to do but stand it. “I’ll get out at the first stop,” thought Jack, but he did not know that he was on a through freight, which made but few stops. Soon, in spite of his thirst, Jack felt sleepy. He was very tired, and the monotonous sound of the wheels clicking over the rail joints produced a sort of hypnotic effect. Before he knew it, he was slumbering, having slipped down from his dress-suit case, to lie at full length on the hard floor of the car, his head pillowed on the valise and his bundled-up coat. When Jack awoke with a start, some hours later, he saw by the daylight streaming in through the partly opened door of the car, that it was morning. He got up, feeling lame and stiff, and, for a moment, he could scarcely remember where he was. “Well,” he remarked, with a grim smile, as he donned his coat, “the conductor didn’t take up my ticket, and the porter hasn’t blacked my shoes, but I guess I’ll have to let it go. I expect I need a good brushing down, too. “I wonder whereabouts I am,” he went on. “Guess I’ll take a look. I want to get off as soon as I can. My, but I’m dry! My tongue’s like a piece of leather!” He picked up his suit case and went to the side door. He caught a glimpse of green fields through which the train was moving. Setting the case down in front of the door, Jack put his hands in the crack, to make it wider, in order that he might see better. The door stuck a little, and he had to use considerable strength to shove it, but he finally found it was giving. He had one glimpse of a broad sweep of pretty country, with a range of low mountains in the distance, and then something happened. The train gave a sudden swerve as it went around a sharp curve. The abrupt change in motion nearly threw Jack from the car, but, instinctively, he clung to the edge of the door with all his strength. Just then the train thundered over a bridge spanning a small river. The car rocked and swayed with the motion imparted to it by the curve, and then, before Jack could put out a hand to catch it, his dress-suit case toppled over and slid out of the open door, falling down into the river. Jack could see the splash it made, as it disappeared beneath the water, and then, as the train rolled on, the rumbling caused by passing over the bridge was changed to a duller sound, as solid ground was reached. “My suit case!” exclaimed Jack, leaning from the door and looking back. “I can’t afford to lose that! I must get it. Maybe it’ll float, and perhaps the river isn’t very deep. I must get out at the next stop and go back after it. But will the train stop anywhere near here?”