"Turn around--face the engine. That's right. Now listen to me. I've got
this pistol jammed squarely against your back, and if you make a false
move--well, you won't have time to regret it. Answer my questions too.
How long is that bridge?"
"I--I do--don't kno--ow."
"It's rather long, isn't it?"
"With the fill and trestle it's nearly half a mile."
"What is the next stop west of here for this train?"
"Hopville, forty mile west."
"Where does the east-bound train stop next after leaving here?"
"It don't stop till it gits over in Indiana, thirty mile or more."
"I'm much obliged to you. Now walk straight ahead until you come to the
blind end of the mail car."
At the front end of the mail car Crosby and his prisoner halted. Every
one knows that the head end of the coach just back of the engine tender
is "blind." That is, there is no door leading to the interior, and one
must stand outside on the narrow platform if, perchance, he is there
when the train starts. As the east-bound train pulled in from the
bridge, coming to a stop on the track beyond the west-bound train,
Crosby commanded his erstwhile captor to climb aboard the blind end of
the mail coach.
"Geewhillikers, don't make me do that," groaned the unhappy Brown.
"Get aboard and don't argue. You can come back to-morrow, you know, and
you're perfectly safe if you stay awake and don't roll off. Hurry up! If
you try to jump off before you reach the bridge I'll shoot."
A moment later the train pulled into the bridge and Crosby hurried back
to his anxious companion. Brown was on his way to a station forty miles
west, and he did not dare risk jumping off. By the time the train
reached the far end of the bridge it was running forty miles an hour.
"Where is he?" she cried in alarm as he rushed with her across the
intervening space to the coveted "east-bound."
"I'll tell you all about it when we get inside this train," he answered.
"I think Brown is where he can't telegraph to head us off any place
along the line, and if we once get into Indiana we are comparatively
safe. Up you go!" and he lifted her up the car steps.
"Safe," she sighed, as they dropped into a seat in a coach.
"I'm ashamed to mention it, my dear accomplice, but are you quite sure
you have your purse with you? With the usual luck of a common thief, I
am penniless."
"Penniless because you gave your fortune to the cause of freedom," she
supplemented, fumbling in her chatelaine bag for her purse. "Here it is.
The contents are yours until the end of our romance."
The conductor took fare from him to Lafayette and informed the
mud-covered gentleman that he could get a train from that city to
Chicago at 2:30 in the morning.
"We're all right now," said Crosby after the conductor had passed on.
"You are tired, little woman. Lie back and go to sleep. The rough part
of the adventure is almost over." He secured a pillow for her, and she
was soon resting as comfortably as it was possible in the day coach of a
passenger train.
For many minutes he sat beside her, his eyes resting on the beautiful
tired face with its closed eyes, long lashes, pensive mouth, and its
frame of dark hair, disarranged and wild.
"It's strange," he thought, almost aloud, "how suddenly it comes to a
fellow. Twelve hours ago I was as free as a bird in the air, and now--"
[Illustration: "THEY GO TO THE THEATRE"]
[Illustration: '"GOOD HEAVENS!" "WHAT IS IT?" HE CRIED. "YOU ARE NOT
MARRIED, ARE YOU?'"]
Just then her eyes opened widely with a start, as if she had suddenly
come from a rather terrifying dream. They looked squarely into his, and
he felt so abashed that he was about to turn away when, with a little
catch in her voice, she exclaimed:
"Good heavens!"
"What is it?" he cried.
"You are not married, are you?"
"NO!!!"
Like a culprit caught she blushed furiously, and her eyes wavered as the
lids fell, shutting from his eager, surprised gaze the prettiest
confusion in the world.
"I--It just occurred to me to ask," she murmured.
Crosby's exhilaration was so great that, after a long, hungry look at
the peaceful face, he jumped up and went out into the vestibule, where
he whistled with all the ardor of a school-boy. When he returned to his
seat beside her she was awake, and the little look of distress left her
face when he appeared, a happy smile succeeding.
"I thought you had deserted me," she said.
"Perish the thought."
"Mr. Crosby, if you had a pistol all the time we were in the barn, why
did you not shoot the dog and free us hours before you did?" she asked
sternly.
"I had no pistol," he grinned. From his pocket he drew a nickel-plated
menthol inhaler and calmly leveled it at her head. "It looked very much
like a pistol in the darkness," he said, "and it deserves a place among
the cherished relics descending from our romance."
The next night two happy, contented persons sat in a brilliant Chicago
theatre, and there was nothing in their appearance to indicate that the
day and night before had been the most strenuous in their lives.
"This is more comfortable than a cross beam in a barn," she smiled.
"But it is more public," he responded.
Three months later--but Crosby won both suits.
[Illustration: CROSBY WON BOTH SUITS.]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Day of the Dog, by George Barr McCutcheon