this, but rustling against the palm of his right hand was
the bill whose denomination he had read, and that figure ate into his
memory, ate into his brain.

After all what was Donnegan to him? What was Donnegan but a worthless
tramp? Without any answer to that last monosyllabic query, the brakie
hunched forward, and began to work his way up the train.

The tramp watched him go with laughter. It was silent laughter. In the
most quiet room it would not have sounded louder than a continual, light
hissing noise. Then he, in turn, moved from his place, and worked his
way along the train in the opposite direction to that in which the
brakie had disappeared.

He went expertly, swinging from car to car with apelike clumsiness--and
surety. Two cars back. It was not so easy to reach the sliding side door
of that empty car. Considering the fact that it was night, that the
train was bucking furiously over the old roadbed, Lefty had a not
altogether simple task before him. But he managed it with the same
apelike adroitness. He could climb with his feet as well as his hands.
He would trust a ledge as well as he would trust the rung of a ladder.

Under his discreet manipulations from above the door loosened and it
became possible to work it back. But even this the tramp did with
considerable care. He took advantage of the lurching of the train, and
every time the car jerked he forced the door to roll a little, so that
it might seem for all the world as though the motion of the train alone
were operating it.

For suppose that Donnegan wakened out of his sound sleep and observed
the motion of the door; he would be suspicious if the door opened in a
single continued motion; but if it worked in these degrees he would be
hypersuspicious if he dreamed of danger. So the tramp gave five whole
minutes to that work.

When it was done he waited for a time, another five minutes, perhaps, to
see if the door would be moved back. And when it was not disturbed, but
allowed to stand open, he knew that Donnegan still slept.

It was time then for action, and Lefty Joe prepared for the descent into
the home of the enemy. Let it not be thought that he approached this
moment with a fallen heart, and with a cringing, snaky feeling as a man
might be expected to feel when he approached to murder a sleeping
foeman. For that was not Lefty's emotion at all. Rather he was overcome
by a tremendous happiness. He could have sung with joy at the thought
that