"Label the box for Glasgow and into the van with it, Quick, man,
and there'll be a shilling for you." He had been doing some rapid
thinking these last minutes and had made up his mind. If Dobson and
he were alone in a carriage he could not have the box there; that
must be elsewhere, so that Dobson could not examine it if he were set
on violence, somewhere in which it could still be a focus of suspicion
and attract attention from his person, He took his ticket, and rushed
on to the platform, to find the porter and the box at the door of
the guard's van. Dobson was not there. With the vigour of a fussy
traveller he shouted directions to the guard to take good care of
his luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter, and ran for a carriage.
At that moment he became aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance.
He must have met Leon and heard news from him, for his face was red and
his ugly brows darkening.

The train was in motion. "Here, you" Dobson's voice shouted.
"Stop! I want a word wi' ye." Dickson plunged at a third-class
carriage, for he saw faces behind the misty panes, and above all
things then he feared an empty compartment. He clambered on to
the step, but the handle would not turn, and with a sharp pang of
fear he felt the innkeeper's grip on his arm. Then some Samaritan
from within let down the window, opened the door, and pulled him up.
He fell on a seat, and a second later Dobson staggered in beside him.

Thank Heaven, the dirty little carriage was nearly full. There were
two herds, each with a dog and a long hazel crook, and an elderly
woman who looked like a ploughman's wife out for a day's marketing.
And there was one other whom Dickson recognized with peculiar joy--
the bagman in the provision line of business whom he had met three
days before at Kilchrist.