Once outside the yard she started to run. They would let her telephone
from the drug-store, even without money. She had no money. But the
drug-store was closed and dark, and the threat of Rudolph's return
terrified her. She must get off the hill, somehow.
There were still paths down the steep hill-side, dangerous things that
hugged the edge of small, rocky precipices, or sloped steeply to sudden
turns. But she had played over the hill all her young life. She plunged
down, slipping and falling a dozen times, and muttering, some times an
oath, some times a prayer, "Oh, God, let me be in time. Oh, God, hold him up a while until I--"
then a slip. "If I fall now--"
Only when she was down in the mill district did she try to make any
plan. It was almost eleven then, and her ears were tense with listening
for the sound she dreaded. She faced her situation, then. She could not
telephone from a private house, either to the mill or to the Spencer
house, what she feared, and the pay-booths of the telephone company
demanded cash in advance. She was incapable of clear thought, or she
would have found some way out, undoubtedly. What she did, in the end,
was to board an up-town car and throw herself on the mercy of the
conductor.
"I've got to get up-town," she panted. "I'll not go in. See? I'll stand
here and you take me as far as you can. Look at me! I don't look as
though I'm just bumming a ride, do I?"
The conductor hesitated. He had very little faith in human nature, but
Anna's eyes were both truthful and desperate. He gave the signal to go
on.
"What's up?" he said. "Police after you?"
"Yes," Anna replied briefly.
There is, in certain ranks, a tacit conspiracy against the police. The
conductor hated them. They rode free on his car, and sometimes kept an
eye on him in the rush hours. They had a way, too, of letting him settle
his own disputes with inebriated gentlemen who refused to pay their
fares.
"Looks as though they'd come pretty close to grabbing you," he opened,
by way of conversation. "But ten of 'em aren't a match for one smart
girl. They can't run. All got flat feet."
Anna nodded. She was faint and dizzy, and the car seemed to creep along.
It was twenty minutes after eleven when she got out. The conductor
leaned down after her, hanging to the handrail.