conductor strode into
the car. Even now the Western railroad conductor is a personage, but he
might have been an emperor then, and this particular specimen had lorded
it over the Colonist passengers in a manner that for several days had made
me long to rebuke him. It was foolish, of course, but I was as yet new to
the ways of the country, and I fear we were always a somewhat combative
family.

"Any one for Elktail? Jump off; we can't wait all night with the
west-bound mail," he said. "Say you," looking at me, "you had an Elktail
ticket. Why aren't you getting off?"

"It's Vermont I am bound for," I answered sleepily. "You will see it on my
ticket if you look in your wallet;" but this, of course, the magnate
refused to do, and when another hoot of the whistle announced the
engineer's impatience he called a brakeman, saying:

"You are bound for Elktail, and we've no time for fooling. Won't get off?
Well, we'll soon put you," and, grasping my shoulder, he hustled me toward
the platform of the car.

Now, though Martin Lorimer sometimes gave way to outbreaks of indignation,
he was fond of impressing the fact on me that if forced into a quarrel one
should take the first steps deliberately. Also, even then I remembered
that Coombs' homestead lay almost as near Elktail, and a happy thought
struck me. So I offered but little resistance until, as we stood on the
platform, the brakeman or some one waved a lantern; then, while with a
shock of couplings the cars commenced to move, I gripped the guard-rail
with one hand and held the other ready, for I had determined if I left
that train before I reached Vermont the conductor should certainly leave
it too.

"Off with you!" he shouted, and shook me by the shoulder; but I seized him
by the waist--the cars were moving faster now--and then flung myself off
backward into the snow. I fell softly for as it happened the conductor
fell under me, and, profiting by experience hardly earned in several
colliery disputes, I took the precaution of sitting on him before he could
get up.

"It won't be my fault if you get hurt because you don't keep still," I
said.

Then there was a roar of laughter close by, and staring breathless down
the track I saw the tail-light of the train grow dimmer across the prairie
until it stopped and came swinging toward us again.

"I'd rather have lost five dollars than missed that," said my new friend,
rubbing his hands. "Not bad for a raw Britisher--put the