ets himself
down to the car door by a rope, opens it, and throws the stuff out!"

Jack's exclamation of delight at this final revelation of the heart of
the mystery was followed by one of consternation. "But won't we get an
awful shaking up if we're pitched off, going at full speed?" he said in
alarm.

"We may. We'll have to take it. It's all in the game you know," declared
Boyle grimly. "Sit tight and brace hard, and it'll not be so bad, though.

"Sh! Here he is!"

There was a sound of feet scraping against the car door, a rattle as the
seal was broken and the clasp freed, then a rumble and the sudden full
roar of the train told the two in the boxes that the door had been
opened.

Swinging within, the intruder closed the door behind him, and lit a
match. Peering from a knot-hole, Jack saw that the detective's guess was
correct. It was a brakeman.

As Jack watched, the man produced and lit a dark-lantern, and turned it
on the cases before him. Jack held his breath as the light streamed
through the cracks of his own box.

"Just to order," muttered the brakeman audibly.

"And the bigger one, too. I'll not have to haul any out."

Then, to Jack's momentary alarm, then amusement, the man seated himself
on the box, above him.

Presently, as Jack was wondering what the trainman was waiting for, from
the distant engine came the two long and two short toots for a crossing,
and the man started to his feet. With his eye to the knot-hole Jack
watched.

Again came a whistle, and the creaking of brakes. Immediately the
brakeman slid the car door back a few inches, flashed his lantern four
times, muffled it, and ran the door open its full width.

The critical moment had come. Gathering himself together, Jack braced
with knees and elbows. The trainman seized the box, swung it to the door,
and tipped it forward. The next instant Jack felt himself hurled out into
the darkness.

For one terrible moment he felt himself hurtling through space. Then came
a crackle of branches, the box whirled over and over, again plunged
downward, and brought up with a crash.

A brief space Jack lay dazed, in a heap, head down. But he had been only
slightly stunned, and recovering, he righted himself, and found with
satisfaction that he had suffered no more than a bruise of the scalp and
an elbow.

He had not long to speculate on his whereabouts. From near at hand came a
sound of breaking twigs, and a voice.

[Illustration: THE NEXT INS