But he did not carry out his intention.  Something he heard as he came closer to them caused him to hesitate and reconsider.  Mixed with anathemas directed against the car, of rather a cheap type, were words that had for him more than passing significance.  These men were after some one, and that the some one was none other than himself, Mr. Heatherbloom soon became fully convinced.  Fate had been kinder to him than he knew when he had endeavored, and failed, to win their notice.  He crouched back now against a rail fence; their low disgruntled tones were still borne to him.  For some moments they continued to work over the machine without apparently being able to set it to rights.

“If this goes on much longer,” said one of them, “he’ll get away from Brownville.”

“Providin’ he’s there!” grumbled another.  “People are always seeing an escaped criminal in a dozen different localities at the same time.”

Brownville!  The listener soon divined, from a sentence dropped here and there, that the place was a little fishing village a short distance down the coast.  He surmised, also, that they had by this time the main harbor of the city fairly watched as far as outgoing vessels were concerned, and were reaching out to prevent a possible exit from the smaller community.  Fishing craft leaving from there could easily take out a fugitive and thus enable him to escape.  This contingency the authorities were now endeavoring to avert; that they also had some kind of a clue, pointing to their present destination and inciting them to make haste thither, was evident from the skeptical remark Mr. Heatherbloom had overheard.

A series of explosions, as sudden as spasmodic, broke in on the listener’s thoughts.  “Hurray!” said one.  “We’re off!”

And they were, quickly.  Mr. Heatherbloom also moved with extreme abruptness and expedition.  Waiting in the shadow until they had all sprung into the car and the machine had fairly started, he then darted forward, seized a strap and clinging as best he might, hoisted himself to the place in the rear designed for a trunk.  One desire only, in resorting to this expedient, moved him—­to get in touch as soon as possible, if possible, with the other car.  This machine, of inferior build, suggested, it is true, a dubious way to that end but it was the best that offered.

He did not see the incongruity of his position, of being a passenger, though secretly and surreptitiously, of the car containing those embarked on a mission so closely concerning himself.  Instead of fleeing from them he was actually courting their company, pursuing himself, as it were!  At another time he might have smiled; now the situation had for him nothing of the comic; it was tragically grim, also decidedly unpleasant.  A strong odor of gasolene permeated his nostrils until he was nearly suffocated by it and all the dust, stirred by their flight, swirled up on him, making it difficult to refrain from coughing.  Fortunately the machine had a monopoly on noises, and any sound from him would have passed unnoticed.  He had ridden the “bumpers” not so long ago on freights, and, perforce, indulged in kindred uncomfortable methods of free transportation in the course of his recent career, but he had never experienced anything quite so little to be desired as this.