Bart
let the hand car drive at its own impetus.
"Stop!" yelled Buck Tolliver.
He held some object in his hand. Bart crouched by the side of the
pumping standard, and the hand car spun out on the tracks crossing the
valley, just as the thunder-storm broke forth in all its fury.
Bart's back was to the wind, and the wind helped his progress. As the
tracks led into the timber, Bart took a last glance backwards, but rain
and mist shut out all sight of the hill and his enemies.
He had no idea as to the terminus or connections of the railroad, but
never relaxed his efforts as long as clear tracks showed beyond.
Bart must have gone six or seven miles, when he saw ahead some scattered
houses, then a church steeple and a water tower, and he caught the echo
of a locomotive whistle.
"It's the B. & M., and that is Lisle Station!" he soliloquized with
unbounded satisfaction.
Fifteen minutes later, wringing wet with rain and perspiration, Bart
drove the hand car up to a bumper just behind a little country depot,
and leaped to the ground.
"Hello!" hailed a man inside, the station agent, staring hard at him
through an open window.
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