After ten minutes of waiting, the dazzling
head-light of a great train, crawling out of the city, showed down the
Avenue. He unlatched the door of his cab, took his satchel in his hand,
and, as the last car on the train came up to him, he leaped out, mounted
the platform, and vanished in the car, closing the door behind him. "All
right!" was shouted from the rear; the conductor swung his lantern, and
the train thundered over the bridge and went roaring off into the night.
The General had escaped. All night he traveled on, and, some time during
the forenoon, his car was shunted from the Trunk line upon the branch
that led toward Sevenoaks. It was nearly sunset when he reached the
terminus. The railroad sympathy had helped and shielded him thus far,
but the railroad ended there, and its sympathy and help were cut off
short with the last rail.
Mr. Belcher sent for the keeper of a public stable whom he knew, and
with whom he had always been in sympathy, through the love of
horse-flesh which they entertained in common. As he had no personal
friendship to rely on in his hour of need, he resorted to that which had
grown up between men who had done their best to cheat each other by
systematic lying in the trading of horses.
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