his breath. His breast was heaving, his
pulse hammering, and his skin was streaming. The excitement was the
greatest under which he had ever labored.

"Now--what shall--I do?" he panted. A freight-train was lumbering toward
him and the head-light was almost at the station. The train appeared to
be going slowly through without stopping. Kurt hurried on down the track
a little farther. Then he waited. He would get on that train and make
his way somehow to Ruxton, there to warn Anderson of the plot against
his life.

CHAPTER X

Kurt rode to Adrian on that freight, and upon arriving in the yards
there he jumped off, only to mount another, headed south. He meant to be
traveling while it was dark. No passenger-trains ran at night and he
wanted to put as much distance between him and Wheatly as possible
before daylight.

He had piled into an open box-car. It was empty, at least of freight,
and the floor appeared to have a thin covering of hay. The train,
gathering headway, made a rattling rolling roar. Kurt hesitated about
getting up and groping back in the pitch-black corners of the car. He
felt that it contained a presence besides his own. And suddenly he was
startled by an object blacker than the shadow, that sidled up close to
him. Kurt could not keep the cold chills from chasing up and down his
back. The object was a man, who reached for Kurt and felt of him with a
skinny hand.

"I.W.W.?" he whispered, hoarsely, in Kurt's ear.

"Yes," replied Kurt.

"Was that Adrian where you got on?"

"It sure was," answered Kurt, with grim humor.

"Than you're the feller?"

"Sure," replied Kurt. It was evident that he had embarked upon an
adventure.

"When do we stall this freight?"

"Not while we're on it, you can gamble."

Other dark forms sidled out of the gloomy depths of that cavern-like
corner and drew close to Kurt. He realized that he had fallen in with
I.W.W. men who apparently had taken him for an expected messenger or
leader. He was importuned for tobacco, drink, and money, and he judged
that his begging companions consisted of an American tramp, an Austrian,
a negro, and a German. Fine society to fall into! That eighty thousand
dollars became a tremendous burden.

"How many men on this freight?" queried Kurt, thinking he could ask
questions better than answer them. And he was told there were about
twenty-five, all of whom expected money. At this information Kurt rather
closely pressed his hand upon