ogether.

"Chut!" said I, "left my cigar on the window-ledge in the hindmost car.
Be back in a moment."

This time, for a wonder, Stagers allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I
hastened through to the nearer end of the hindmost car, and stood on
the platform. I instantly cut the signal-cord. Then I knelt down, and,
waiting until the two cars ran together, I tugged at the connecting-pin.
As the cars came together, I could lift it a little, then as the strain
came on the coupling the pin held fast. At last I made a great effort,
and out it came. The car I was on instantly lost speed, and there on the
other platform, a hundred feet away, was Stagers shaking his fist at me.
He was beaten, and he knew it. In the end few people have been able to
get ahead of me.

The retreating train was half a mile away around the curve as I screwed
up the brake on my car hard enough to bring it nearly to a stand. I did
not wait for it to stop entirely before I slipped off the steps, leaving
the other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their
absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.

As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career
than to amuse by describing its lesser incidents, I shall not linger to
tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I
had never ceased to anticipate the moment when escape from File and his
friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
very small funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving.
The whole amount did not exceed sixty-five dollars, but with this, and
a gold watch worth twice as much, I hoped to be able to subsist until
my own ingenuity enabled me to provide more liberally for the future.
Naturally enough, I scanned the papers closely to discover some account
of File's death and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was
only too likely to have made.

I came at last on an account of how he had poisoned himself, and so
escaped the hangman. I never learned what he had said about me, but I
was quite sure he had not let me off easy. I felt that this failure to
announce his confessions was probably due to a desire on the part of the
police to avoid alarming me. Be this as it may, I remained long ignorant
as to whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that unusual
coroner's inquest.

Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
Accordingly appeare