Pa.s.sing the first farm house which fronted upon the wagon road, they could see by the light cast by a lantern that stood beside him upon the porch, a man dressed in his night robe raise a revolver and after taking a careful aim at the approaching buggy, just as they were in line with him, discharge point blank in quick succession its six messengers of death into their midst. But Boston Frank did not slacken the pace, on the contrary he urged the horse to ever greater speed.

Not a word was exchanged by the inmates of the buggy during this race, and for several miles farther they drove at the utmost speed, then the horse's terrific gait commenced to slacken, and now that they were beyond the aroused neighborhood, Boston Frank slowed the horse and turned in at a road crossing to throw possible pursuers upon a wrong trail.

Just as they realized how close an escape they had, Slippery keeled over against Boston Frank and said hoa.r.s.ely: "Frank, for mercy's sake take me where I can get a drink of water. The fellow who fired at us from the first farm house hit his mark, for I am shot." "Slippery, old boy," now queried Boston Frank, not believing that such a dire calamity had overtaken them, "you are joking, aren't you?" And then, when Slippery did not answer, he looked into his pal's face and saw there the pallor of death while two dark lines emerging from the corner of his mouth caused by the wounded man's life blood, trickling away, proved to him that his comrade in crime had only too accurately spoken the bitter truth. Now he coughed and when Boston Frank saw a stream of blood shoot out of the wounded man's mouth and heard a choking noise in his throat, he readily recognized the nature of the hurt and that Slippery had been shot through his lungs.

Boston Frank in sheer desperation again urged the rapidly tiring horse to one last effort, but soon the best speed he could get out of the animal was a slow trot. Again Slippery most piteously begged for a drink of water, and taking a desperate chance, when he saw in the darkness an open gate that led into a field, he guided the tired horse into it, and after Joe had closed the gate behind them he drove ahead until a thick thorn hedge stopped further progress. Here they lifted the wounded man out of the buggy and laid him upon the ground. He continued to plead most piteously for a cooling drink of water to appease his torturing fever thirst. "Joe," cautioned Boston Frank, after he had securely tied the horse to the hedge, "you take care of poor Slippery until I return with my derby filled with water, as I cannot bear to listen longer to the poor fellow's heart-rending appeals." Then he disappeared into the night, resolved to find water at any price.

"Joe, Joe, come here, Joe," the lad heard Slippery weakly calling a moment later, and he knelt beside the wounded man and asked him what he desired. Just then Slippery could not answer, as he was again vomiting blood, and Joe tried to ease his breathing by elevating his head with boughs he broke from the hedge.

"Joe," the wounded fellow called again, "where are you, Joe?" The boy placed his hand in the outstretched, searching hands of Slippery, who feebly pressed them with his own and said, "Joe, I know I am mortally wounded, and want you to make me, a dying man, a promise. I meant to forsake crime and live the life of an honest man for your sake after we had successfully pulled off this job--my last one." He paused a moment and then continued, "I took you with us, so when you and I went to your home in Rugby you would never forget that you had been my accomplice and would not be apt to peach on me. I know that the wound I received is the just punishment for the greatest wrong mortal man can commit, that of leading a harmless boy astray." Again he paused, as if his troubled conscience overpowered him, and then with a renewed effort that heavily taxed his fast ebbing vitality, he added, "Joe, for the love you bear for your mother, of whom you have spoken so often, swear now, before the Almighty, that you will from this moment forward shun the three evils which have brought me to this, and which are 'b.u.ms, Booze and Boxcars', and that you will not further a.s.sociate with the criminals at the flat, for if you return to them, on account of this night's work you will be forever one of their number." And there in the solitude of the night, kneeling beside his dying companion, with his arms uplifted towards the starry firmament, Joe solemnly swore that he would beware of "b.u.ms, Booze and Boxcars", and quit the very people whose acquaintance he had made through Slippery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: And there in the solitude of the night, kneeling beside his dying companion, Joe solemnly swore to forever forsake the "Road."]

For a moment all was silence, which was interrupted only by the gurgling of the blood as it welled up into the mortally wounded yegg's throat, then came the pitifully human appeal from the lips of the dying man, "Joe, where are you, Joe? Do not leave me alone, Joe, now that all have left me and everything is so dark before my eyes." Then after a brief pause he painfully stammered, "Joe, find your brother Jim, then both of you go back to your mother and be once more her boys." He again became silent and then, now that it was too late, he plainly showed, that although he was a despised yegg, there was one place in this wide world where there would be one true friend waiting in vain for his return, for he slowly added, "Joe, believe me, there is no friend like mother and no place like home."

Then came another hemorrhage and a stream of his life blood shot into the air and then, with a last effort, he drew Joe's hands to his parched, suffering lips, and while he covered them with kisses, the rattling in his throat increased, then decreased, and finally stopped--he had expired.

When Boston Frank returned with the water, he only found his dead pal, as Joe, horror stricken by the dead man's gla.s.sy stare, by the blood covered corpse, by the quietude of the night and all the horrors which had transpired, had fled into the night as if furies and demons were pursuing him, bent only upon placing as much s.p.a.ce as possible between his living self and the gruesome tragedy he had left behind. He climbed over fences and forced his way through hedges; forded creeks and swam streams, until from his frantic exertions he became so completely exhausted that when he fell into a clump of bushes he was unable to rise, and gradually sank into a deep sleep.

Then a strange dream came to him. He dreamed he was a prisoner locked up in a narrow cell, and that he saw Slippery, the yegg's face pressed against its cross-barred steel door, while on both sides of him stood officers of the law. They were leading him to the gallows, upon which he had been condemned to expiate his crime, and now on his way to face his doom he had stopped to bid Joe a last farewell, and Joe could distinctly hear his words: "Good-bye, Joe, do not do as I did, who when a youngster ran away from a good home to follow b.u.ms, Booze and Boxcars, but go back to your waiting mother before it is too late, for remember, 'The Wages of Sin is Shameful Death'."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hanging from the gallows]

CHAPTER XII.

"Scattered to the Winds."

The sun stood high in the heavens when Joe awakened, and it was some moments before he remembered the horrible occurrences of the preceding night. But most vividly of all he remembered the solemn promise he had made to his dying pal and to strengthen himself in his resolve to strictly live up to his pledge, he fell upon his knees and repeated the solemn oath.

At a rippling brook he washed and removed every trace of the ordeal he had pa.s.sed through, and then inquired from a farmer the direction to the railroad station at Dixon, where he intended to hop a train to Chicago and, arriving in the city, find a job so he could support himself honestly, while keeping on a lookout for his missing brother Jim.

After an hour's walk he arrived at the railroad station and found a crowd surging about a baggage truck which stood upon the station platform, and when he managed to push his way through the throng he found that the people were staring at a blood soaked blanket that covered a carca.s.s of some sort. Joe only stopped for a moment, for when one of the men, more curious than the others, lifted up a corner of the blanket, Joe gazed into the lifeless features of Slippery, the yegg, and forced by his emotions he retreated quickly to another part of the platform.

Here he overheard some of the citizens discussing the post office robbery, and he heard them say that the railroad and city policemen had identified the dead robber as one of the most dangerous criminals in the land for whose apprehension "dead or alive", the government offered a large reward. He also heard that the same country store post office had been dynamited twice in the past three months, and that the postmaster had set a trap with the aid of his neighbors, to give the next gang of burgling yeggs a hot reception.

Presently a loud shout was heard and the crowd made a rush to the front of the station. Joe followed and saw a dirt covered man, securely manacled to an officer, entering the waiting room. Joe instantly recognized Boston Frank, and heard that he had been caught by a farmer's posse, who, following a trail of blood that had dripped from the buggy, had surprised Boston Frank while he was busy at work burying the satchels containing the burglar tools.

Joe caught Boston Frank's eye and forthwith pushed himself alongside the yegg. While the officer to whom he was manacled paid close attention to the postmaster, who told him that although yeggs had spoiled his safe for a third time, he had protected his own and the government's valuables by having placed a quart bottle of formaldehyde in the safe, Boston Frank contrived to whisper to Joe that he had Slippery's purse in his hip pocket, and for him to take it and keep its contents, as he himself would have little use for cash in the penitentiary, for a long term now stared him in the face, and he ordered Joe to purchase a ticket and take the first train leaving for Chicago and to warn the others, as the officers, while searching him had found an incriminating letter that bore upon its envelope the correct address of the gang's hangout.

Joe did as Boston Frank had directed, and a moment later he had, un.o.bserved, abstracted a well-filled purse from the latter's pocket and hid it in his own. He then made his way to the ticket window and called for a ticket to Chicago. When he pulled out the purse that Boston Frank had told him belonged to the slain criminal, he almost dropped it from sheer surprise, as he instantly recognized it as his own purse, the very one that had been stolen from him at the Golden Rule Hotel, and the loss of which had started all of his misfortunes. He paid for the ticket and then in a secluded spot he counted the contents of the purse, which proved to be a windfall to the penniless lad, as it amounted to twelve dollars.

While he waited for the arrival of the train, marvel as he might, he could not solve the riddle connected with the strange return of his purse that had so mysteriously managed to come back to its rightful owner after having disappeared at a place five hundred miles removed from Dixon, Illinois.

He rode to Chicago on the same train upon which the government officers were bringing the corpse of the slain robber, and while Boston Frank was chained to a seat in the smoking car, Joe sat silently in the first-cla.s.s coach, thinking of the lucky escape he had had and ever and anon repeating the oath he had made to the now lifeless clay in the baggage car ahead.

While Joe was thus occupied he must have attracted the attention of one of the train men, who good-naturedly stopped to chat with him, and inquired where he was going. Joe told him that Chicago was his destination, and innocently added that he intended to find employment in the city. "Say, kid," the good-natured brakeman advised him, more as a huge joke than in a serious vein, "if you cannot find anything better, hit my boss for a job." And then he gave Joe the correct address of his superior.

When the train arrived at the Chicago terminal, Joe boarded a street car that brought him quickly to the flat where he intended to acquaint its inmates with the misfortune that had overtaken Slippery and Boston Frank, and also to deliver the verbal message the latter had given him.

To his surprise he found the front of the house in which the flat was located kept clear of public traffic by a cordon of policemen, while several police patrols were backed against the curb, and were not only loaded with the handcuffed criminals, who had been caught like rats in a trap, upon the telegraphic advice of the Dixon police authorities, but with thousands of dollars worth of stolen property that had been found in trunks and other hiding places.

While Joe stood in the crowd watching the finish of those who had transgressed the law, with far better reasons than the curious idlers about him could suspect, he felt someone sharply pull his coat sleeve.

He felt himself turning ashen-gray from fright as he thought some detective had recognized him, and when the same sharp pull was repeated, trembling with fear, he turned to see who it was that knew him in Chicago, and recognized that his dread was groundless as it was "Babe"

who had pulled his sleeve, the youngest girl in the den of the thieves, who luckily happened to be away from home when the police commenced the raid of the flat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Her emotions got the better of her and she placed her arms around the sobbing lad's neck and kissed him.]

"Come, Joe," she whispered, "I want to speak to you." He followed the girl and both walked to the nearby sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan, where he repeated to her word for word everything that had occurred since he last saw her at the flat, and when he remarked that both of them should thank a kind Providence that had kept them out of the hands of the police, tears trickled down their cheeks, while they gazed out over the restless waters of the lake.

It was "Babe" who broke the silence by remarking: "We are indeed lucky, Joe. Just think of what would have been our fate had we been arrested with the others. You would have been sent to a penal inst.i.tution to emerge years later an ex-convict, a marked man forever afterwards, while I would have been sent to a home where I would have been forced to a.s.sociate with the most degraded wretches. I was only seventeen last month and was sent from a faraway western city to a boarding school in the east, where the "blue stocking" matrons made the unfettered life that I had learned to love at home such a misery for me, that I ran away and came to Chicago to seek employment. I fell in with evil company, but, thank G.o.d, I have yet enough common sense left to know when to quit, and that is right now. For obvious reasons, I am not going to tell you my address, but," here she turned and out of a hiding place in her dress pulled a fair-sized roll of greenbacks, and then she continued, "I have managed to look out for a day just like this one and have saved a few dollars so I could get back home in the west, and" now she peeled a hundred dollar bill from the roll she held in her hand, "I want you to accept this sum and forget that you ever met me." Here her emotions got the best of her and she put her arms around Joe's neck, who was sobbing, being unable to express in any other manner his appreciation of the girl's generosity, and after she had kissed the boy she whispered: "Joe, for the sake of your mother I want you to swear that you will never again become a companion of criminals." Joe repeated to her the same solemn oath he had pledged to the dying Slippery, and promised that he would faithfully adhere to it as long as he lived. When he finished, for the want of something better to give her as a souvenir, he emptied the purse that had so strangely come back to him and made the girl accept it as a token of his grat.i.tude for her timely help, when a mere dozen dollars stood between him and temptation.

After making Joe promise that he would not attempt to follow her, she bade him farewell and walked to the nearest street crossing, and while Joe was busy wiping his eyes with one of his hands, he waved her farewell with the other until she mounted a street car and was whirled beyond his vision.

After Joe had furnished himself with a proper outfit of clothing, and all the other things required by a young man who intends to find a respectable position, he engaged a room at a first-cla.s.s hotel. He ate his supper in company with honest people and later retired for the night. He turned off the light, and while he lay there between the sheets waiting for sleep to overtake him, the fearful experiences of the last two days followed one another through his agitated mind just as if they were moving pictures. When he came to the scene where he knelt by the side of the flying yegg and solemnly swore to forever quit the path Slippery had shown him, he felt a strange power drag him out of the bed, force him to kneel upon the floor and repeat the sacred promise to shun b.u.ms, Booze and Boxcars and then, when he went again to bed, it was only a few moments until he was soundly sleeping.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Where is my Brother James"

On the following morning after he had breakfasted, he carefully copied all suitable advertis.e.m.e.nts inserted in the daily papers and set out to find employment, resolved to accept the very first job offered him, having profited by his Minneapolis experience when he and Jim refused many offers of employment which for the moment did not look good to them, but for which on the following day they actually begged.

Filled with hope to quickly land a good job, he called at the different addresses, and, although he walked for hours up and down the streets and avenues, everywhere he inquired the place had been secured by some other person who had called earlier in the day. When afternoon approached, wearied by the resultless job-hunt and discouraged by his continued misfortune, he sank upon a bench in a city park to take a rest.

While listlessly watching the pa.s.sersby a touch of homesickness almost got the mastery of him. He was just at the point of deciding if it would not be best for him while yet he had the funds to do so, to purchase a ticket back to Rugby and ask his mother's forgiveness. He even arose from the bench to put this idea into execution, but he only made a few steps when he faltered and returned to his seat, the courage to face his mother without his brother James failed him. To find James now became his one desire, but think of whatever scheme he might, it seemed that to have patience and wait to meet him in Chicago was the only method he could discover.

Just then, whistling a lively tune and with a toothpick saucily sticking out of one corner of his mouth, a small Western Union Messenger boy, dressed in all the bra.s.s b.u.t.toned glory of his snappy uniform, pa.s.sed the tormented Joe, and somehow the latter's dejected countenance did not please the telegram carrier, and he greeted him with a withering, sneering look that caused Joe to double his fist within his pockets, aching to have it out with the fresh fellow. But before he could muster sufficient anger to start trouble, the messenger boy, no doubt fearing a sound thrashing, quickened his steps and hastened beyond the danger zone. Joe watched him until he pa.s.sed around a street corner and wondered what caused him to be so overbearing, and just then the uniform of the messenger reminded him of the advice the brakeman gave him on the train, that should he be unable to find a job to tackle his superintendent for employment. He consulted his notebook into which he had entered the address, and taking a street car, a few minutes later he climbed the stairway of a large railroad office building and quickly found himself in the ante-room of the railroad ruler's office.

When his turn came he entered the superintendent's office, whom he found to be a very kindly spoken gentleman, and brought matters to a quick head by blandly asking him for employment. The superintendent smiled to see a youngster like Joe daring to ask him, the master of thousands of employees, for a job, but Joe quickly convinced him that he was able to do a man's work and told how his late father had been a railroad employee at the time of his demise. The superintendent became interested in the open-faced lad, who most insistently pleaded to be given a chance to prove his desire to make good.

In those days, the railroad companies were not so strict in the hiring of their employees as they are at present, and when the superintendent asked Joe what sort of job he thought he could fill, the latter, remembering the natty uniform of the pa.s.senger train's crew, promptly replied that a brakeman's job aboard a pa.s.senger train would just suit him, which answer caused the superintendent to break out into a hearty laugh, after he had told Joe that he was several sizes too small to fill that position. But Joe was entirely too much in earnest to be turned away this easily, and drawing himself to his full height, he pleaded that, as he had no home and neither touched tobacco nor strong drink, he should at least be given a trial, and then finished his appeal by telling the superintendent that a young, live and accommodating trainman was preferred by the patrons of every railroad to a cranky one.

This last statement pleased the superintendent so well that he told Joe to report a week after date in a regulation uniform and that he should have a chance to prove his side of the argument. Joe thanked the superintendent for his kindness and after he closed the office door he jumped down the stairway three steps at a time, so happy was he. In fact he realized that he had not only found a job that would decently support him, but one that strictly conformed with his somewhat restless disposition, as it permitted him to travel to his heart's content aboard the flying trains, giving him at the same time a chance to earn an honest living and see a bit of the world.

He gave a tailor a "hurry" order for a trainman's uniform, and when he reported on the appointed day at the superintendent's office, he was put in charge of a conductor who quickly became his fatherly friend, because Joe did everything required of him in a most satisfactory manner. Each pay day he placed a large percentage of his salary in a savings bank, and as his wages were from time to time increased, he soon became the owner of a comfortable bank account.

He always kept a sharp lookout for his brother Jim, but five years rolled around in which time he found no trace of his missing brother.

Finally he was attacked by a severe case of homesickness; somehow he felt a strange loneliness come over him, and the picture of his mother could not be effaced from his mind, and fearing as much as ever to return home without his twin brother, he finally wrote a long letter, pleading for her forgiveness and inquiring if anything had been heard from James since they left home together. He wrote his own address in the upper corner of the envelope and dropped the letter into a mail box.

But from the moment the letter left his hands, his anxiety while waiting for an answer became such a burden that he was unable to attend to his duties, and had to ask for a lay-off. As hours were added to hours and days to days without an answer arriving, the strain of the suspense finally became so fearful that mute desperation was written in every line of his face, and to end the misery he was busily packing his suitcase ready to leave for Rugby, letter or no letter, the following morning and there upon his knees plead with his mother to forgive his boyish prank, when someone knocked on the door and when he opened it he found it was his landlady who handed him a letter, and he recognized it as being the same one he had addressed to his mother at Rugby, but there was this time written across its face: "Moved to Canada. Present address unknown."

Joe stared at the letter for some moments as if dazed, then he locked the door, and when on the following afternoon his landlady knocked to inquire if anything was wanted he opened it. His bed was still unruffled, showing that he had not occupied it during the night, and when she saw the same letter she had brought to him, its writing blurred and tear-stained, lying open upon the dresser, and noted the red and swollen eyes and woe-begone expression of Joe's face, her motherly heart quickly surmised the pitiful drama that had been enacted behind the closed door of the room. She stepped close to the broken-hearted man, who was sitting upon a chair, mutely holding his head between his hands, and while she lightly stroked his hair she pleaded with him to go to the street, as she thought that mingling with the crowds would prove the best heart-balm for him.