access.

Their scheming and plotting had finally reached the point where it
needed only the least provocation to cause them to skip, and this chance
came to them one evening while the section crew was in their bunk house,
and their mother and Donald, whom they had not taken into their
confidence, were busy in the kitchen, when a long, eastbound freight
train pulled in upon the siding to let the westbound passenger train
pass it. The boys were lounging in the front yard and as the freight
train slowly drew past them they espied some open, empty box cars, and
as if driven by some strange impulse, they pressed each other's hands
and whispered that now "the time had come," and then dashed up to their
room, emptied the savings bank, packed their few necessities into small
bundles and, carefully avoiding the rear of the section house where the
kitchen was located, and keeping on the alert to prevent meeting or
being seen by any of the section men or train crew, they ran down the
side of the train, which was just pulling out of the siding, climbed--as
they had so often seen hoboes do--into an empty box car, and slinking
back into the darkness of its farthest corner, they were soon traveling
beyond familiar landscape. Gradually they became accustomed to the
jolting and rattling of their side-door Pullman and stretched themselves
upon its hard floor and fell asleep.

It must have been almost morning when, as they stopped at the last water
tank west of Grand Forks, they were aroused from their slumbers by the
bright rays shed by a lighted lantern held in the hands of a brakeman
who roughly shouted: "Which way, kids?" "To Saint Paul," answered Joe.
"Got some money, lads, with which you can square your ride?" inquired
the railroad man, as he raised his lantern higher so he could the better
estimate the fare he could charge his hobo-passengers, who had now risen