Nick Adams stands up. He is by train tracks, and it is dark outside. He sees a train disappearing into the distance. He is angry with the brakeman and with himself. The brakeman lured him over and then hit him hard. Nick has a black eye, but cannot see it in the puddles. He decides he must go somewhere. He starts walking along the tracks. He is annoyed because he had hopped aboard the freight train a while ago. Now he was far from any town he knew. He is hungry and his eye hurts. He crosses a bridge and sees a fire in the distance. He approaches it carefully and sees only one man sitting at it. He greets the man, who asks where Nick got his black eye. Nick tells him that a man punched him off of the freight train. The man at the fire replies that he saw that man dancing along the top of the train as it passed. Nick becomes more annoyed. The man at the fire tells Nick that he is tough, which Nick initially denies. Then, though, Nick simply says that young men like him need to be tough.