“You'd better get aboard then,” said McDowell. “We're going to start now.” His coolness exasperated the stout man, and he shouted after the Superintendent, “I won't submit to this. I tell you, you'll be sorry for it before I get through with you.” McDowell paid no heed to the threat, and nodded Haven to go ahead; but a young telegraph operator, whose services were to be required further up the road, heard the words and shouted to the angry man:-- “If you don't want to take the train, there's probably a livery stable here, or else you can go to the hotel. It's a gold cure, but I guess they'd take you in.” McDowell laughed and went into the car. He did not hear what his former passenger answered, and he did not care. He would probably have been less amused if he had known that the man was none other than State Senator “Sporty” Jones. It does not pay to enrage any man wantonly, and especially not a man who makes it his main principle in life to get even. And as any of his circumspect associates could inform you, Senator Sporty Jones was just such a man. It was nearing six o'clock when No. 14 slowed down in the southern outskirts of Tillman City. The army, though depleted, was jubilant, and more than made up in _esprit du corps_ what it had lost in numbers. The raid had so far been completely successful: all the stations had been seized, and the south-bound trains they had met had been held up and placed in charge of C. & S.C. employees. There had been no resistance worth mentioning, and they had prevented any warning of their coming from going up the line ahead of them. Tillman City was lying an unsuspecting prey, though fairly in their clutches. Bill Stevens, the agent at Tillman, knew that something had gone wrong, for No. 14 was later than usual, and had not been reported from the last two stations; so when the drooping semaphore told him that she was in the block, he went out on the platform to find out what had happened. As the train came panting up to the station he saw two strange men in the cab instead of Downs and Berg, and this puzzled him more than ever. The sheriff was the first man off the train; he walked straight up to the agent, and in two minutes the formalities were over. Stevens and his subordinates were discharged, and the ticket office and baggage room put in charge of the new employees with a celerity born of practice. A number of deputies under McDowell's orders scattered out to take possession of the roundhouse, the freight depot, and the yards.