They were on the cowcatcher and in the cab, on the car roofs, and in the caboose with the train-crew of three trouble-shooting mechanics. Highlights gleamed on their weapons. Their job was to keep or get all transients off that train--and they would if they could. Ollie let most of the train go past. The caboose came by at about fifteen miles an hour with a sharp-eyed guard head-and-shoulders out of the cupola. Ollie let him get past, too--and hoped he went on looking toward the front. He began to hobble parallel to the train, dismayed at the stiffness that had set in while he lay out on the damp concrete. As the rear of the caboose drew even with him he emerged from the shadows and dived for the coupling at the car's rear. He caught it clumsily, tore the nail off his left ring finger, but hung on. He tried to trot but the train dragged him. He gave a leapfrog player's jump and landed on top of his own hands, his thighs around the coupling, his nose against the rear platform-wall of the caboose. The engine jerked slack out of the long train and nearly dislodged him. One at a time he moved his hands from the coupling to the base of the wall. He edged in a little closer. The train gathered speed. He wasn't really on but he couldn't safely get off. He'd intended climbing under the caboose to its rear truck, but the bulls and his own lack of agility made this impossible so now he must ride where he was, exposed to battering wind and searching cold as the train crossed the High Sierras, and also exposed to the whims of the trainmen if any should come out on the platform and look down. He'd seen men shot off trains. But he didn't worry about it. Instead, like the old hand he was, he tried to sleep while clinging there. * * * * * At Sparks the train stopped for a maintenance check. The guards formed a perimeter but Ollie was inside it. Too stiff to move far, he stayed in a shadow while the mechanics inspected, then he climbed under the caboose and stretched out on a girder separating two tires of the rearmost, six-tired truck. The tremendous tires fanned up hot winds when rolling, and these had warmed the steel he lay on. Before the train started he ate a roll, sucked the orange, and stretched out face down for the speed run across the central Nevada flatlands. The guards stayed behind. After the train had started, one of them shined a light directly in Ollie's eyes. The train kept on. And he was too close to the tires to be shot at; rubber-coated death whirled within three inches at either side of him. As the train picked up speed he was careful to lie still, but beyond making sure he didn't touch the tires Ollie tried to put all thought of risk from his mind.