loosened as it
had already been, so that his thin, wiry body could slip between its edge
and the rest of the wall. He had one moment of intense terror lest it
slip elastically back and hold him pinioned there, but a convulsive
struggle sufficed, and he stepped out, exhausted and trembling, into the
gathering dusk, a lowering assemblage of darkling mountains, and at a
little distance the shacks of the construction gang. The doors were
aflare with flickering lights from within, and the unctuous smell of
frying pork was on the air. It was well for his enterprise that at the
critical moment the camp was discussing its well-earned supper and had
scant attention to bestow on other interests.

An hour later the men on a hand-car, whizzing down the portion of the
track that was sufficiently complete for this mode of progression, gave
little heed that a workman from the camp was stealing a ride, sitting in
a huddled clump, his feet dangling. Whether discharged or in the
execution of some commission for the construction boss, they did not even
canvass. Far too early it was for the question of rates or passes to vex
the matter of transportation. They did not even mark when he dropped off,
for the hand-car ran into the yards at the terminus, carrying only its
own crew.

Clenk was equally fortunate in creeping into an empty freight here
unobserved, and when it was uncoupled and the engine swept into the
round-house in the city of Glaston, it was verging again toward sunset,
and he was hundreds of miles from his starting-point.

Some monitions of craft were vaguely astir in his dull old brain. He had
resolved to throw himself on the mercy of the mother, ere he trusted
himself to the clutches of the law. He winced from the mere thought of
those sharp claws of justice, but he promised himself that he would be
swift. He could not say how Holvey and Drann might secure precedence of
him. They had gotten the start, and they might hold it. But if he should
tell the mother where they had left the child, he would surely have a
friend at court. When he was in the street he walked without hesitation
up to the first responsible-looking man he met, and, showing him the
advertisement in the newspaper, boldly asked to be directed to the house
of that lady.

So dull he was, so unaccustomed to blocks and turnings and city squares,
that after an interval of futile explanation the stranger turned out of
his way and walked a short distance with him.