oung folks
that like music and dancing--"
"How you run on!" Mother said, trustingly.
From the bleakness ahead came a cracked but lusty voice singing "Hello,
'Frisco!"
"Man singing! Jolly! That's a good omen," chuckled Father. "All the
folks that are peculiar--like we are--love to sing."
"Yes, and talk!" However much she enjoyed Father's chatter, Mother felt
that she owed it to her conscience--which she kept as neat and well
dusted, now that they were vagrants, as she had in a New York flat--to
reprove him occasionally, for his own good.
"Say, this is exciting. That's a bonfire ahead," Father whispered.
They slowed their pace to a stealthy walk. Behind them and beside them
was chilly darkness lurking in caverns among black, bare tree-trunks.
Before them they could see a nebulous glow and hear the monotonous voice
singing the same words over and over.
Mother shrieked. They stopped. A vast, lumbering bulk of a man plunged
out from the woods, hesitated, stooped, brandished a club.
"Tut, tut! No need to be excited, mister. We're just two old folks
looking for shelter for the night," wavered Father, with spurious
coolness.
"Huh?" growled a thick, greasy voice. "Where d'yuh belong?"
"Everywhere. We're tramping to San Francisco."
As he said it Father stood uneasy, looking into the penetrating eye of
an electric torch which the man had flashed on him. The torch blotted
out the man who held it, and turned everything--the night, the woods,
the storm mutters--into just that one hypnotizing ball of fire suspended
in the darkness.
"Well, well," gasped the unknown, "a moll, swelp me! Welcome to our
roost, 'bo! You hit it right. This is Hoboes' Home. There's nine 'boes
of us got a shack up ahead. Welcome, ma'am. What's your line? Con game
or just busted?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, young man," snapped Mother.
"Well, if you two are like me, nothing but just honest workmen, you
better try and make 'em think you're working some game--tell 'em you're
the Queen of the Thimble-riggers or some dern thing like that. Come on,
now. Been gathering wood; got enough. You can follow me. The bunch ain't
so very criminal--not for hoboes they ain't."
The large mysterious man started down the path toward the glow, and
Father and Mother followed him uncomfortably.
"It's a den of vice he's taking us into," groaned Father. "And if we go
back they'll pursue us. Maybe we better--"
"I don't believe a con game
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