milk train. It was late. Pat would not lose his job this time, for he
must have had plenty of time to get back to the station. Billy wormed
himself under cover as the train approached, and bided his time.
Cautiously, peering from behind the huckleberry growth, he watched Pat
slamming the milk cans around. He could see his bicycle lying like a
dark skeleton of a thing against the gravel bank. It was lucky he got
there before day, for Pat would have been sure to see it, and it might
have given him an idea that Billy had gone with the automobile.

The milk train came suddenly in sight through the tunnel, like a
lighted thread going through a needle. It rumbled up to the station.
There was a rattling of milk cans, empty ones being put on, full cans
being put off, grumbling of Pat at the train hands, loud retorts of the
train hands, the engine puffed and wheezed like a fat old lady going
upstairs and stopping on every landing to rest. Then slamming of car
doors, a whistle, the snort of the engine as it took up its way again
out toward the rosy sky, its headlight weird like a sick candle against
the dawn, its tail light winking with a leer and mocking at the
mountains as it clattered away like a row of gray ducks lifting webbed
feet and flinging back space to the station.

Pat rolled the loaded truck to the other platform ready for the Lake
train at seven, and went in to a much needed rest. He slammed the door
with a finality that gave Billy relief. The boy waited a moment more in
the gathering dawn, and then made a dash for the open, salvaging his
bicycle, and diving back into the undergrowth.

For a quarter of a mile he and the wheel like two comrades raced under
branches, and threaded their way between trees. Then he came out into
the Highroad and mounting his wheel rode into the world just as the sun