48 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



at me, though one of them held fast to his shovel, 

 while the other kept his hand upon a big ugly 

 wrench. Neither of them spoke to me, but above 

 the roar of the swaying engine I caught enough 

 of their broken talk to understand that they were 

 driving under a full head of steam, with the in- 

 tention of handing me over to the Boston police, 

 as perhaps the safest way of disposing of me. 



" I was only afraid that they would try it at 

 the next station. But that station whizzed past 

 without a bit of slack, and the next, and the next ; 

 when it came over me that this was the through 

 freight, which should have passed in the night, 

 and was making up lost time. 



" Only the fear of the shovel and the wrench 

 kept me from shaking hands with both men at 

 this discovery. But I beamed at them ; and they 

 at me. I was enjoying it. The unwonted jar be- 

 neath my feet was wrinkling my diaphragm with 

 spasms of delight. And the fireman beamed at the 

 engineer, with a look that said, 'See the lunatic 

 grin ; he likes it ! ' 



"He did like it. How the iron wheels sang to 

 me as they took the rails ! How the rushing wind 

 in my ears sang to me ! From my stand on the 



