Chapter 4

"What are you talking about, man? She is my cousin and drove over here this evening to see me between trains. I think you'd better lower your gun, my friend. This will go mighty hard with you."

"But---"

"He has you confused with that horse thief who said his name was Crosby, Tom," said she, pinching his arm delightedly. "He was the worst-looking brute I ever saw. I thought Mr. Austin had him so secure with the bulldog as guardian. Did he escape?"

"Yes, an' you went with him," exclaimed Brown, making a final stand. "An' I know all about how you come over here in Scott Higgins's wagon too."

"The man is crazy!" exclaimed Mrs. Delancy.

"He may have escaped from the asylum up north of here," whispered Crosby, loud enough for the deputy to hear.

"Here comes the train," cried she. "Now we can ask the train men to disarm him and send him back to the asylum. Isn't it awful that such dangerous people can be at large?"

Brown lowered his pistol as the engine thundered past. The pilot was almost in the long bridge at the end of the depot when the train stopped to wait for the eastbound express to pass. The instant that Brown's revolver arm was lowered and his head turned with uncertainty to look at the train, Crosby's hand went to his coat pocket, and when the deputy turned toward him again he found himself looking into the shiny, glittering barrel of a pistol.

"Throw that gun away, my friend," said Crosby in a low tone, "or I'll blow your brains out."

"Great Scott!" gasped Brown.

"Throw it away!"

"Don't kill him," pleaded Mrs. Delancy. Brown's knees were shaking like leaves and his teeth chattered. His revolver sailed through the air and clattered on the brick pavement beyond the end of the platform. "Don't shoot," he pleaded, ready to drop to his knees.

"I won't if you are good and kind and obliging," said Crosby sternly. "Turn around--face the engine. That's right. Now listen to me. I've got this pistol jammed squarely against your back, and if you make a false move--well, you won't have time to regret it. Answer my questions too. How long is that bridge?"

"I--I do--don't kno--ow."

"It's rather long, isn't it?"

"With the fill and trestle it's nearly half a mile."

"What is the next stop west of here for this train?"

"Hopville, forty mile west."

"Where does the east-bound train stop next after leaving here?"

"It don't stop till it gits over in Indiana, thirty mile or more."

"I'm much obliged to you. Now walk straight ahead until you come to the blind end of the mail car."

At the front end of the mail car Crosby and his prisoner halted. Every one knows that the head end of the coach just back of the engine tender is "blind." That is, there is no door leading to the interior, and one must stand outside on the narrow platform if, perchance, he is there when the train starts. As the east-bound train pulled in from the bridge, coming to a stop on the track beyond the west-bound train, Crosby commanded his erstwhile captor to climb aboard the blind end of the mail coach.

"Geewhillikers, don't make me do that," groaned the unhappy Brown.

"Get aboard and don't argue. You can come back to-morrow, you know, and you're perfectly safe if you stay awake and don't roll off. Hurry up! If you try to jump off before you reach the bridge I'll shoot."

A moment later the train pulled into the bridge and Crosby hurried back to his anxious companion. Brown was on his way to a station forty miles west, and he did not dare risk jumping off. By the time the train reached the far end of the bridge it was running forty miles an hour.

"Where is he?" she cried in alarm as he rushed with her across the intervening space to the coveted "east-bound."

"I'll tell you all about it when we get inside this train," he answered. "I think Brown is where he can't telegraph to head us off any place along the line, and if we once get into Indiana we are comparatively safe. Up you go!" and he lifted her up the car steps.

"Safe," she sighed, as they dropped into a seat in a coach.

"I'm ashamed to mention it, my dear accomplice, but are you quite sure you have your purse with you? With the usual luck of a common thief, I am penniless."

"Penniless because you gave your fortune to the cause of freedom," she supplemented, fumbling in her chatelaine bag for her purse. "Here it is. The contents are yours until the end of our romance."

The conductor took fare from him to Lafayette and informed the mud-covered gentleman that he could get a train from that city to Chicago at 2:30 in the morning.

"We're all right now," said Crosby after the conductor had passed on. "You are tired, little woman. Lie back and go to sleep. The rough part of the adventure is almost over." He secured a pillow for her, and she was soon resting as comfortably as it was possible in the day coach of a passenger train.

For many minutes he sat beside her, his eyes resting on the beautiful tired face with its closed eyes, long lashes, pensive mouth, and its frame of dark hair, disarranged and wild.

"It's strange," he thought, almost aloud, "how suddenly it comes to a fellow. Twelve hours ago I was as free as a bird in the air, and now--"

Just then her eyes opened widely with a start, as if she had suddenly come from a rather terrifying dream. They looked squarely into his, and he felt so abashed that he was about to turn away when, with a little catch in her voice, she exclaimed:

"Good heavens!"

"What is it?" he cried.

"You are not married, are you?"

"NO!!!"

Like a culprit caught she blushed furiously, and her eyes wavered as the lids fell, shutting from his eager, surprised gaze the prettiest confusion in the world.

"I--It just occurred to me to ask," she murmured.

Crosby's exhilaration was so great that, after a long, hungry look at the peaceful face, he jumped up and went out into the vestibule, where he whistled with all the ardor of a school-boy. When he returned to his seat beside her she was awake, and the little look of distress left her face when he appeared, a happy smile succeeding.

"I thought you had deserted me," she said.

"Perish the thought."

"Mr. Crosby, if you had a pistol all the time we were in the barn, why did you not shoot the dog and free us hours before you did?" she asked sternly.

"I had no pistol," he grinned. From his pocket he drew a nickel-plated menthol inhaler and calmly leveled it at her head. "It looked very much like a pistol in the darkness," he said, "and it deserves a place among the cherished relics descending from our romance."

The next night two happy, contented persons sat in a brilliant Chicago theatre, and there was nothing in their appearance to indicate that the day and night before had been the most strenuous in their lives.

"This is more comfortable than a cross beam in a barn," she smiled.

"But it is more public," he responded.

Three months later--but Crosby won both suits.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Day of the Dog, by George Barr McCutcheon