stabs at the sky. I
built little huts of discarded railway ties, and lit camp-fires, for I
was fearful of the crawling things I saw by day. The coyote called from
the hills. Uneasy rustlings came from the sagebrush. My teeth,
a-chatter with cold, kept me awake, till I cinched a handkerchief around
my chin. Yet, drenched with night-dews, half-starved and travel-worn, I
seemed to grow every day stronger and more fit. Between bondage and
vagabondage I did not hesitate to choose.

Leaving the sea, I came to a country of grass and she-oaks very pretty
to see, like an English park. I passed horrible tule swamps, and reached
a cattle land with corrals and solitary cowboys. There was a quaint old
Spanish Mission that lingers in my memory, then once again I came into
the land of the orange-groves and the irrigating ditch. Here I fell in
with two of the hobo fraternity, and we walked many miles together. One
night we slept in a refrigerator car, where I felt as if icicles were
forming on my spine. But walking was not much in their line, so next
morning they jumped a train and we separated. I was very thankful, as
they did not look over-clean, and I had a wholesome horror of
"seam-squirrels."

On arriving in Los Angeles I went to the Post Office. There was a letter
from the Prodigal dated New York, and inclosing fourteen dollars, the
amount he owed me. He said:

"I returned to the paternal roof, weary of my role. The fatted calf
awaited me. Nevertheless, I am sick again for the unhallowed
swine-husks. Meet me in 'Frisco about the end of February, and I
will a glorious proposition unfold. Don't fail. I must have a
partner and I want you. Look for a letter in the General Delivery."

There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a
steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my
fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a
hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained friendless and
unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb
up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I
would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would
know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had
learned something.

The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their
masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for
the dollar. With m