“I’ll get even with that ‘con’ for putting me off the blind baggage, see if I don’t!”

The tone in which the words were uttered was so venomous, that Bob realized the speaker meant mischief, though he was ignorant of the fact that in the slang of tramps who beat their way on railroads, “con” betokened conductor, and “blind baggage” the platform of the coach in a passenger train nearest the engine.

Looking about to find out where the angry man was, Bob could see no one.

But the next instant another voice asking, “How you goin’ to do it?” decided him that the speakers must be crouching against the end of the empty coal car to which he was holding.

How he had failed to discover them from the top of the other car, he could not understand, but he soon ceased to wonder, in his eagerness to catch every word uttered by the unseen tramps.

“That’s easy,” replied the voice the boy recognized as having made the threat to “get even.”

“Cut out that talk, and get down to business,” growled a third voice.

“All right, ’Bo.  We can put all sorts of crimps into this road by ‘holding up’ the night express!  The officials of this road, whose men are too stingy to let a fellow ride on the blind baggage, are boasting they haven’t had a ‘hold-up’ for years.”

The various exclamations with which this wicked plan was greeted, told Bob not only that it met the approval of the tramps, but that there were more than two of them.

The full danger of a “hold-up” the boy did not realize.  He remembered, however, having read of such occurrences out West where passengers were terrorized and robbed of money and jewelry.

But his speculation was again interrupted by the renewal of the conversation.

“That will sure set us even, but when can we do it?” inquired a voice eagerly.

“And get away safely?” added another.

“There’s only one place,” responded the voice of the man who had suggested the plot.

“Where?” chorused the others.

“On this end of the long bridge across the river.”

“Right you are, ’Bo.  We can make our ‘get-away’ down the bank and find some of the ‘shanty men’ to take us across.”

“And into the arms of the police,” sneered the ringleader.  “We’ll use the bank to escape, but we won’t ask any favors of a ’shanty man’.”

“Will there be enough money aboard to make it worth while?” inquired one of the schemers, with an evidently practical turn of mind.

“Sure; Number 4 always carries a bunch of gold for Western towns.”

“But how’ll we board her?” asked still another.

“Get a lantern and wave it.”

“Will they stop?”

“Say, why do you suppose I chose the approach to the bridge?” snapped the man who had proposed the scheme.

And then, without giving his companions a chance to speak, he answered his question himself: