als to ply their nefarious vocations. He
weighed the chances he stood to reform in Chicago and abandoned the
scheme as impracticable.

Then Slippery recalled Jim's narrative of his lone prairie section home,
and he adroitly questioned the lad and discovered that the country about
Rugby was a desolate prairie, that post offices and banks were few,
widely scattered and poorly patronized, and that Joe had never heard of
any one of these being robbed, nor even a residence or farm house being
entered, and when the lad finished by telling of the fertility of the
soil and the fact that homesteads could still be had there for the mere
filing of the necessary claims, Slippery again became absorbed in his
thoughts.

Then he had a vision. He saw himself drilling into a safe. Then came a
dull explosion and when the safe's door was torn from its hinges he saw
himself upon his knees filling a large bag with the gold coins which
poured out of the dynamited treasure box. Then he saw Joe and himself
dressed in the best that money could purchase, speeding along aboard a
Pullman to Rugby, North Dakota. He felt the hearty hand grip as Joe's
mother thanked him for having kept her boy from coming to harm, and when
he saw himself the prosperous owner of an immense and well worked farm,
he then and there swore a silent but nevertheless solemn oath that
after the next successful safe-blowing exploit he would do exactly as
this vision had showed him would be the best method to turn over a new
page of his life.

"Look out, Slippery, jump for your life!" suddenly came a frightened cry
from Joe's lips, and instinctively Slippery followed Joe's example and
leaped off the track, upon which they had been so peacefully walking,
blissfully ignorant of how close to death they had come. In the next
fraction of a second a "Limited" thundered past them, whose ashen-faced
engineer was frantically pulling at the whistling cord and blowing the
danger signal, while he shook an angry fist at the frightened fellows,
who had so narrowly escaped an impending calamity.

"Joe," stammered Slippery, when he again found his voice that from sheer
fright failed him for some moments, "boy, you have saved my life and
come what may I shall stay and work with you and then after we have made
a 'stake' we will go to Rugby and I shall buy a farm and make my home
near your home and finish my days in peace and plenty."

From this moment Slippery became a different kind of com