He releases my collar, makes a quick run, and swings aboard.  A number of coaches are yet to pass by.  He knows it, and remains on the steps, his head poked out and watching me.  In that moment my next move comes to me.  I’ll make the last platform.  I know she’s going fast and faster, but I’ll only get a roll in the dirt if I fail, and the optimism of youth is mine.  I do not give myself away.  I stand with a dejected droop of shoulder, advertising that I have abandoned hope.  But at the same time I am feeling with my feet the good gravel.  It is perfect footing.  Also I am watching the poked-out head of the shack.  I see it withdrawn.  He is confident that the train is going too fast for me ever to make it.

And the train is going fast—­faster than any train I have ever tackled.  As the last coach comes by I sprint in the same direction with it.  It is a swift, short sprint.  I cannot hope to equal the speed of the train, but I can reduce the difference of our speed to the minimum, and, hence, reduce the shock of impact, when I leap on board.  In the fleeting instant of darkness I do not see the iron hand-rail of the last platform; nor is there time for me to locate it.  I reach for where I think it ought to be, and at the same instant my feet leave the ground.  It is all in the toss.  The next moment I may be rolling in the gravel with broken ribs, or arms, or head.  But my fingers grip the hand-hold, there is a jerk on my arms that slightly pivots my body, and my feet land on the steps with sharp violence.

I sit down, feeling very proud of myself.  In all my hoboing it is the best bit of train-jumping I have done.  I know that late at night one is always good for several stations on the last platform, but I do not care to trust myself at the rear of the train.  At the first stop I run forward on the off-side of the train, pass the Pullmans, and duck under and take a rod under a day-coach.  At the next stop I run forward again and take another rod.

I am now comparatively safe.  The shacks think I am ditched.  But the long day and the strenuous night are beginning to tell on me.  Also, it is not so windy nor cold underneath, and I begin to doze.  This will never do.  Sleep on the rods spells death, so I crawl out at a station and go forward to the second blind.  Here I can lie down and sleep; and here I do sleep—­how long I do not know—­for I am awakened by a lantern thrust into my face.  The two shacks are staring at me.  I scramble up on the defensive, wondering as to which one is going to make the first “pass” at me.  But slugging is far from their minds.

“I thought you was ditched,” says the shack who had held me by the collar.

“If you hadn’t let go of me when you did, you’d have been ditched along with me,” I answer.

“How’s that?” he asks.

“I’d have gone into a clinch with you, that’s all,” is my reply.

They hold a consultation, and their verdict is summed up in:—­