r. In passing through the
next, he met the conductor, who asked for his ticket, and after tearing
off a section of the long paper, gave him a card, which he gruffly
ordered him to stick in his hat. Then he put his hand on Dick's shoulder,
and pushed him back through the vestibule.

"That's your car behind and you'll stop right there," he said. "Next time
you come out we'll put you off the train."

Dick resigned himself, but stopped on the front platform and looked back
as the train jolted across a rattling bridge. A wide, yellow river ran
beneath it, and the tall factories and rows of dingy houses were fading
in the rain and smoke on the other side. Dick watched them until they
grew indistinct, and then his heart felt lighter. He had endured much in
the grimy town; but all that was over. After confronting, with
instinctive shrinking, industry's grimmest aspect, he was traveling
toward the light and glamour of the South.

Entering the smoking compartment, he found the disturbance had subsided,
and presently fell into talk with a man on the opposite seat who asked
for some tobacco. He told Dick he was a locomotive fireman, but had got
into trouble, the nature of which he did not disclose. Dick never learned
much more about his past than this, but their acquaintance ripened and
Kemp proved a useful friend.

It was getting dark when they reached an Atlantic port and were lined up
on the terminal platform by a man who read out a list of their names. He
expressed his opinion of them with sarcastic vigor when it was discovered
that three of the party had left the train on the way; and then packed
the rest into waiting automobiles, which conveyed them to the wharf as
fast as the machines would go.

"Guess you won't quit this journey. The man who jumps off will sure get
hurt," he remarked as they started.

In spite of his precautions, another of the gang was missing when they
alighted, and Kemp, the fireman, grinned at Dick.

"That fellow's not so smart as he allows," he said. "He'd have gone in
the last car, where he could see in front, if he'd known his job."

They were hustled up a steamer's gangway and taken to the after end of
the deck, where their conductor turned his back on them for a few minutes
while he spoke to a mate.

"Now's your time," said Kemp, "if you feel you want to quit."

Dick looked about. The spar-deck, on which the boats were stowed, covered
the spot where he stood, and the passage beneath the