Now I don’t know anything about the quarries at Rutland, Vermont.  I’m very glad that I don’t, when I remember how near I was to getting into them.  Tramps pass the word along, and I first heard of those quarries when I was in Indiana.  But when I got into New England, I heard of them continually, and always with danger-signals flying.  “They want men in the quarries,” the passing hoboes said; “and they never give a ‘stiff’ less than ninety days.”  By the time I got into New Hampshire I was pretty well keyed up over those quarries, and I fought shy of railroad cops, “bulls,” and constables as I never had before.

One evening I went down to the railroad yards at Concord and found a freight train made up and ready to start.  I located an empty box-car, slid open the side-door, and climbed in.  It was my hope to win across to White River by morning; that would bring me into Vermont and not more than a thousand miles from Rutland.  But after that, as I worked north, the distance between me and the point of danger would begin to increase.  In the car I found a “gay-cat,” who displayed unusual trepidation at my entrance.  He took me for a “shack” (brakeman), and when he learned I was only a stiff, he began talking about the quarries at Rutland as the cause of the fright I had given him.  He was a young country fellow, and had beaten his way only over local stretches of road.

The freight got under way, and we lay down in one end of the box-car and went to sleep.  Two or three hours afterward, at a stop, I was awakened by the noise of the right-hand door being softly slid open.  The gay-cat slept on.  I made no movement, though I veiled my eyes with my lashes to a little slit through which I could see out.  A lantern was thrust in through the doorway, followed by the head of a shack.  He discovered us, and looked at us for a moment.  I was prepared for a violent expression on his part, or the customary “Hit the grit, you son of a toad!” Instead of this he cautiously withdrew the lantern and very, very softly slid the door to.  This struck me as eminently unusual and suspicious.  I listened, and softly I heard the hasp drop into place.  The door was latched on the outside.  We could not open it from the inside.  One way of sudden exit from that car was blocked.  It would never do.  I waited a few seconds, then crept to the left-hand door and tried it.  It was not yet latched.  I opened it, dropped to the ground, and closed it behind me.  Then I passed across the bumpers to the other side of the train.  I opened the door the shack had latched, climbed in, and closed it behind me.  Both exits were available again.  The gay-cat was still asleep.

The train got under way.  It came to the next stop.  I heard footsteps in the gravel.  Then the left-hand door was thrown open noisily.  The gay-cat awoke, I made believe to awake; and we sat up and stared at the shack and his lantern.  He didn’t waste any time getting down to business.