excited dash down the steps. As they caught their footing below, they
started racing pell-mell down the platform to its end; there he saw
them, looking more than ever like clustered bees in the distance,
struggling vehemently in a dense mass up a staircase in the remote
corner of the building.

"What are those folks running for? Is there a fire?" he asked an
amiable-faced young mulatto, in the uniform of the sleeping-car service,
who passed him with some light hand-bags.

"No; they's Harlem people, I guess--jes' catchin' the Elevated--that's
all, sir," he answered obligingly.

At the moment some passengers emerged slowly from one of the
sleeping-cars, and came loitering toward him.

"Why, are there people still in these cars?" he asked eagerly. "Haven't
they all gone?"

"Some has; some ain't," the porter replied. "They most generally take
their time about it. They ain't no hurry, so long's they get out 'fore
we're drawn round to the drill-yard."

There was still hope, then. Theron took up his bag and walked forward,
intent upon finding some place from which he could watch unobserved the
belated stragglers issuing from the sleeping-cars. He started back
all at once, confronted by a semi-circle of violent men with whips
and badges, who stunned his hearing by a sudden vociferous outburst of
shouts and yells. They made furious gestures at him with their whips
and fists, to enforce the incoherent babel of their voices; and in these