an impossibility for them
to wring from their mother her consent to let them try their luck in the
city, for since their father's death, they had become her moral support.
They felt ashamed to be loafing idly about the reservation until school
opened again and have their widowed mother support them, as they were
now sixteen years of age, and more than able to support not only
themselves, but could and would gladly have supported her had an
opportunity been offered them. The more they argued the matter between
themselves, the more they became resolved to journey to some city, and
at least until the time came for them to be on hand at school opening,
make their own way and perhaps their fortune, which seemed to them
within easy reach. They had saved almost fifty dollars, which had been
earned running errands and working as water-boys whenever an "extra"
gang had been sent from the division point to assist their father's crew
in putting in a new culvert, building a new switch or doing other heavy
work requiring more man-power then the reservation crew could supply.
This money was kept in a small savings bank, to which they had easy
access.

Their scheming and plotting had finally reached the point where it
needed only the least provocation to cause them to skip, and this chance
came to them one evening while the section crew was in their bunk house,
and their mother and Donald, whom they had not taken into their
confidence, were busy in the kitchen, when a long, eastbound freight
train pulled in upon the siding to let the westbound passenger train
pass it. The boys were lounging in the front yard and as the freight
train slowly drew past them they espied some open, empty box cars, and
as if driven by some strange impulse, they pressed each other's hands
and whispered that now "the time had come," and then dashed up to their
room, emptied the savings bank, packed their few necessities into small
bundles and, carefully avoiding the rear of the section house where the
kitchen was located, and keeping on the alert to prevent meeting or
being seen by any of the section men or train crew, they ran down the
side of the train, which was just pulling out of the siding, climbed--as
they had so often seen hoboes do--into an empty box car, and slinking
back into the darkness of its farthest corner, they were soon traveling
beyond familiar landscape. Gradually they became accustomed to the
jolting and rattling of their side-door Pullm