“Will you!” hissed the man, and leaped at Dick, bearing him down to the car floor.  At once his hand sought the lad’s throat.

“I’ve a good mind to choke the life out of you,” he went on.  “I hate you all —­ everyone who bears the name of Rover!” I

“Le —­ let up!” gasped Dick, growing purple in the face, while his eyes bulged from their sockets.”

“I’ll pitch you off!” was Arnold Baxter’s answer, and suddenly he lifted Dick up in his strong arms and stepped to the open doorway.  They were passing over a trestle spanning a wide gully, at the bottom of which were bushes, rocks, and a tiny mountain stream.

“Don’t!” cried Dick, and snatched at the handle of the car door.  He had just clutched it, when Arnold Baxter launched forth his body into space.

The next instant, and while Baxter stood by the edge of the door, the long train swung around a sharp curve.  There was a quick jerk, and with a yell of fright which sounded in Dick’s ears for days afterward, Arnold Baxter slipped through the doorway and went tumbling head foremost down into the gully!

Dick shut his eyes at the sight and clung fast mechanically.  Then, as soon as he could recover, he swung himself into the car.  He could not stand, and sank like a lump of lead to the car floor unconscious.

When he recovered, several train hands surrounded him, and his face was wet from the water they had poured over him.  It was fully an hour before he could tell his story, and then a hand-car was sent back to the spot where Arnold Baxter had had his terrible fall.

The rascal was found at the foot of the gully, a leg and several ribs broken and otherwise bruised.  He was carried to the hand-car like one dead, and later on transferred to a hospital at Ithaca.  Here it was announced that he might possibly recover, although this was exceedingly doubtful.

“He’s a bad one,” said Tom, when he heard Dick’s story.  “I would like to know what Buddy Girk has to say about him.”

Buddy had been taken to the Rootville jail and searched, and a pawn-ticket for the stolen watch found in his vest pocket.  The ticket was on a Middletown pawnbroker, and showed that fifteen dollars had been loaned on the timepiece.  Buddy had more than this amount in his pocket, and some time later the money was forwarded to the pawnbroker, and then the precious watch and chain came back to Dick, in as good a condition as ever.

“I haven’t got nuthin’ to say,” said Buddy, when Dick tried to make him talk.  “I didn’t steal the watch, and I didn’t do nothin’.”

“You won’t tell me anything about Arnold Baxter?” questioned Dick.

“Ain’t got nuthin’ to say,” repeated Buddy, who was planning to escape from jail that very night.

And escape he did, through a window the bars of which were bent and broken.  The authorities searched for him for nearly a week, but the search proved unavailing.