the
darkness to make good their escape. "Yes, that must be it; for tramps are
always cowards," thought the boy. "But four of them ought to have whipped
two of us easy enough."

Then he wondered what the object of the attack could have been, and what
the tramps were after. All at once it flashed into his mind that the M. S.
and T. car number 50, beside which he was standing, was filled with costly
silks and laces from France which were being sent West in bond. He had
overheard Conductor Tobin say so; and, now, there was the door of that
very car half-way open. The tramps must have learned of its valuable
contents in some way, and been attempting to rob it when Brakeman Joe
discovered them. What a plucky fellow Joe was to tackle them
single-handed.

"I wonder if they got anything before he caught them?" thought the boy;
and, to satisfy his curiosity on this point, he went to his own car for
the lantern that was still hanging in it, and returned to car number 50,
determined to have a look at its interior. As he could not see much of it
from the ground, he set the lantern just within the open doorway, and
began to climb in after it. He had hardly stepped inside, and was stooping
to pick up his lantern, when he was knocked down by a heavy blow, and
immediately seized by two men who sprang from out of the darkness on
either side of him. Without a word they bound his wrists with a stout bit
of cord, and, thrusting his own handkerchief into his mouth, fastened it
securely so that he could not utter a sound. Then they allowed him to rise
and sit on a box, where they took the precaution of passing a rope about
his body and making it fast to an iron stanchion near the door.

Having thus secured him, one of the men, holding the lantern close to the
boy's face, said in a threatening tone: "Now, my chicken, perhaps this'll
be a lesson to you never to interfere again in a business that doesn't
concern you."

"Hello!" exclaimed the other, as he recognized Rod's features, "if this
ere hain't the same cove wot set the dog onto me last night. Oh, you young
willin, I'll get even with you now!"

With this he made a motion as though to strike the helpless prisoner; but
the other tramp restrained him, saying: "Hold on, Bill, we hain't got no
time for fooling now. Don't you hear the engine coming back? I'll take
this lantern and give 'em the signal to go ahead, in case that fool of a
brakeman doesn't turn up on time, which I don't believ