"We're heeled."
"Well, they'd settle you in a minute."
"They can't. We can bust the bulls."
"All right," said Curly. "Be the wise guy if you want to. I'll take it on the lam for mine; they ain't going to bury me. Can I get out that way?"
He brushed past them in the doorway, and called from the kitchen:
"Besides, you've got orders."
Then Archie remembered; he looked at his mother, at his father, glanced about the little room, barren in the poverty that had entered the home, hesitated, then turned and left them standing there. As he passed through the kitchen he heard little Katie and little Jake breathing in their sleep, and the sound tore his heart.
He was over the fence and in the alley just behind Curly. They ran for a block, darted across a lighted street, then into the black alley again. For several blocks they dashed along, getting on as fast as they could. Then at length Archie, soft from his imprisonment, stopped in the utter abandon of physical exhaustion and stood leaning against a barn.
"God!" he said, "I hain't going another step! I'm all in!"
Curly had been leading the way in the tireless energy of the health his out-of-door life gave him, but when Archie stopped, he paused and stood attent, inclining his head and listening.
The night, almost half gone, was still; sounds that in the daytime and in the earlier evening had been lost in the roar of the city became distinct, trolley-cars sweeping along some distant street, the long and lonesome whistles of railroad engines, now and then the ringing of a bell; close by, the nocturnal movements of animals in the barns that staggered grotesquely along the alley.
"It's all right," said Curly; "we've made a getaway."
He relaxed and slouched over to where Archie stood.
"Where are we, do you know?" he asked.
Archie thought. "That must be Fifteenth Street down there. Yes, there's the gas house." He pointed to a dark mass looming in the night.
"And the canal--and yes, Maynard's lumber-yard's right beyond."
"How far from the spill?"
"About three blocks."
"Come on, we must get out on the main stem."
They went on, but in the security they felt at not being followed, they ran no more, but paced rapidly along, side by side. They had not had the time nor the breath for talk, but now suddenly, Archie, in a tone that paid tribute to Curly's powers, expressed the subliminal surprise he had had.
"How did you know the bulls was there?"
"I piked off the elbow just as we went in."
"I didn't see him," said Archie. "Where was he?"
"Right across the street, planted in a doorway."
"How do you suppose he'd spotted us?"
"Oh, he was layin' for you, that's all. He had it all framed up. He thought he'd job you and swell himself."
"What do you think of that now!"
They reached the yard where the black shadows cast by the tall leaning piles of lumber welcomed them like friends, and through this they passed, coming out at length on the railroad. They reconnoitered. The sky of the October night was overcast by thin clouds which, gray at first, turned bright silver as they flew beneath the risen moon.
"The dog's out," said Curly, who had almost as many names for the moon as a poet.
Before them the rails gleamed and glinted; over the yards myriads of switch-lights glowed red and green, sinister and confusing. Not far away a switch-engine stood, leisurely working the pump of its air-brake, emitting steamy sighs, as if it were snatching a moment's rest from its labors. On the damp and heavy air the voices of the engineer and fireman were borne to them. At times other switch-engines slid up and down the tracks. Curly and Archie sat down in the shadow of the lumber and waited. After a while, down the rails a white light swung in an arc, the resting switch-engine moved and began to make up a freight-train.
"Now's our chance," said Curly.
The switch-engine went to and fro and up and down, whistling now and then, ringing its bell constantly, drawing cars back and forth interminably, pulling strings of them here and there, adding to and taking from its train, stopping finally for a few minutes while a heavy passenger-train swept by, its sleeping-cars all dark, rolling heavily, mysteriously, their solid wheels clicking delicately over the joints of the rails.
"I wish we were on that rattler," said Archie, with the longing a departing train inspires, and more than the normal longing. Curly laughed.
"The John O'Brien's good enough for us," he said.
The passenger-train, shrinking in size by swift perceptible degrees as it lost itself in the darkness, soon was gone. The white lantern swung again, and the switch-engine resumed its monotonous labors, confined to the tedious limits of that yard, never allowed to go out into the larger world. Gradually it worked the train it was patiently piecing together over to the side of the yard where Archie and Curly waited. Then, at last, watching their chance, they slipped out, found an open car, sprang into it, slunk out of possible sight of conductor or switchman, and were happy.
The car was bumped and buffeted up and down the yard for an hour; but Archie and Curly within were laughing at having thus eluded the officers. They sat against the wall of the car, their knees to their chins, talking under cover of the noise the cars made. After a while the engine whistled and the train moved.
When they awoke, the car was standing still and a gray light came through the cracks of the door.
"I wonder where we are," said Archie, rubbing his eyes.
Curly got up, stretched, crept to the middle of the car and looked out.
Presently Archie heard him say:
"By God!"
He joined him. And there were the lumber piles. It was morning, the city was awake, the grinding of its weary mills had begun. They were just where they had been the night before.
"Marooned!" said Curly, and he laughed.
They decided, or Curly decided, that they must wait. Some of those restless switch-engines would make up another train before long, and in it they might leave the town, in which there was now no place of safety for them. The morning was cold; the chill of the damp atmosphere stiffened them. Just outside, in the lumber-yard, several men were working, and the fugitives must not be seen by them, for they would be as hostile as the whole world had suddenly become. They waited, but the men did not leave. Their task seemed to be as endless as that of the switch-engine. For a long while the railroad yards were strangely still.
Now and then Curly crept to the door and peeped out; the lumber-shovers were not twenty feet away. The door on the opposite side of the car was locked. Finally, they grew restless; they decided to go out anyhow.
"Hell!" said Archie. "There's nothing to it. Let's mope."
Something of Archie's recklessness and disregard of consequences affected Curly.
"Well, all right," he said; "come on."
They went to the door of the car. And there, looking full in their faces, was a switchman with a red, rough face and a stubble of reddish beard. The switchman drew back with a curse to express his astonishment, his surprise, the sudden fright that confused and angered him.
"Come out o' that, you hobos," he called, stepping back. The men in the lumber-yard heard his sudden cry, stopped and looked up. The switchman cursed and called again.
Curly and Archie shrank into the darkness of the car. Archie had drawn his revolver.