The retreating train was half a mile away around the curve as I screwed
up the brake on my car hard enough to bring it nearly to a stand. I did
not wait for it to stop entirely before I slipped off the steps, leaving
the other passengers to dispose of themselves as they might until their
absence should be discovered and the rest of the train return.

As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career
than to amuse by describing its lesser incidents, I shall not linger to
tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I
had never ceased to anticipate the moment when escape from File and his
friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
very small funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving.
The whole amount did not exceed sixty-five dollars, but with this, and
a gold watch worth twice as much, I hoped to be able to subsist until
my own ingenuity enabled me to provide more liberally for the future.
Naturally enough, I scanned the papers closely to discover some account
of File's death and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was
only too likely to have made.

I came at last on an account of how he had poisoned himself, and so
escaped the hangman. I never learned what he had said about me, but I
was quite sure he had not let me off easy. I felt that this failure to
announce his confessions was probably due to a desire on the part of the
police to avoid alarming me. Be this as it may, I remained long ignorant
as to whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that unusual
coroner's inquest.

Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the