She placed David on the train to Miami as the train he wanted drew out for Tampa, and an hour later, when the conductor looked at David's ticket, he pulled the bell-cord and dumped David over the side into the heart of a pine forest.

If he walked back along the track for one mile, the conductor reassured him, he would find a flag station where at midnight he could flag a train going north.
In an hour it would deliver him safely in Jacksonville.
There was a moon, but for the greater part of the time it was hidden by fitful, hurrying clouds, and, as David stumbled forward, at one moment he would see the rails like streaks of silver, and the next would be encompassed in a complete and bewildering darkness.

He made his way from tie to tie only by feeling with his foot.

After an hour he came to a shed.

Whether it was or was not the flag station the conductor had in mind, he did not know, and he never did know.