etween
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 Bums, Booze and Boxcars, but go back
to your waiting mother before it is too late, for remember, 'The Wages
of Sin is Shameful Death'."

[Illustration: 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 passed 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 carcass 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 hea