right," declared the conductor. "I bet he
hid here when I came through the train. Something is liable to happen to
that Coon when we get to Oakland."

Meanwhile the search was going on through the other cars of the train.
Nearly everyone had been asleep at the time and the fellow might have
passed through a number of the coaches and not been seen. One woman in
the chair car declared that she had seen someone just like the Mexican
going through the car, about one o'clock.

Everyone joined in the search, looking under the seats in every nook and
corner of the cars. If he was inside the train, it seemed that he must
have the trick of invisibility to escape. At that moment, an idea came
into Jim's mind suggested by a former experience.

"Maybe the beggar has crawled up on top of the cars," he said.

"He must be an acrobat," remarked the conductor, "to do that."

"I'm going to have a look, anyway," Jim declared. The trainmen regarded
him with amazement.

"No, you don't," said the conductor; "that's foolhardy."

"It's slippery as the deuce on top of the cars," put in the brakeman. "I
wouldn't risk it myself."

Then Jim's face broke into a grin, as a sudden thought struck him, in
regard to the subject.

"It won't take long to find out whether the Mexican gent is enjoying the
fresh air on top of the cars," announced Jim; "there's plenty of snow on
top and none has fallen for the past six hours."

The conductor hit Jim a clip on the shoulder.

"Long head, boy!" he exclaimed, "I never thought of that."

They went outside and Jim, the tallest of the crowd, was boosted up by a
couple of trainmen, between the swaying cars (this was long before the
days of vestibules), but they found no trace of the bandit.

"He's certainly not roosting up there," declared Jim.

"Well, if he jumped off, he's a dead greaser," asserted the conductor.

"We will watch and see that he don't slide off at the next station,"
remarked one of the brakemen.

"He couldn't have slipped under one of the cars, could he?" questioned
Jim.

The conductor shook his head with emphasis.

"There's no telling what that fellow mightn't do," said one of the
trainmen.

"With the devil to help him," put in Jim.

"To make sure we will search under the train," decided the conductor,
"at the next stop."

In a few minutes the train rolled into a small station, near the top of
the range. There was a flare of yellow torches under the cars as the
trainmen s