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"We can take the train if you like," said Hank, pleasantly.

That we had not so much as a twenty-five cent piece between us was irrelevant.

We could guess, from the times that the freight-trains had been wont to pass Penny's Pit, when one would be due, west-bound, at Ashcroft; and as we waited for it, sitting on our blanket-rolls, backs against the freight-shed wall there, Hank gave me a few pointers on how to travel without a ticket. He began by drawing in the dust with a finger a design of the under-part of the average freight-car.

"There are the trucks, you see, on which the car rests. Above the trucks, here, are the big springs. Here the brace-rods run under the car fore and aft. Here they run across. If there are two here, close together, though there are not always, you can lay a board on them and lie on the board face down, but you're apt to get cramp in your legs. Your legs dangling, or stretched out behind you, you get your thighs knotted up, and then you're up against it. A good place is here, at the trucks. You creep under and shove your bundle in, between the truck the car sits on, and the car; and then you sit on this rod that runs from side to side, with your back against the truck. If you sit this side of the truck, facing ahead, that's called 'punching the breeze.' If you sit this side, looking back, it's called 'taking it in the neck.' I don't know which to advise. Which would you say, Slim?"