ough the
bars of his cell when I passed by.

I could never make it up with him. The other hall-men told him that I
was a detective in the employ of the conspirators. And in the meantime
the hall-men drove him mad with their stringing. His fictitious wrongs
preyed upon his mind, and at last he became a dangerous and homicidal
lunatic. The guards refused to listen to his tale of stolen millions,
and he accused them of being in the plot. One day he threw a pannikin
of hot tea over one of them, and then his case was investigated. The
warden talked with him a few minutes through the bars of his cell.
Then he was taken away for examination before the doctors. He never
came back, and I often wonder if he is dead, or if he still gibbers
about his millions in some asylum for the insane.

At last came the day of days, my release. It was the day of release
for the Third Hall-man as well, and the short-timer girl I had won for
him was waiting for him outside the wall. They went away blissfully
together. My pal and I went out together, and together we walked down
into Buffalo. Were we not to be together always? We begged together on
the "main-drag" that day for pennies, and what we received was spent
for "shupers" of beer--I don't know how they are spelled, but they are
pronounced the way I have spelled them, and they cost three cents. I
was watching my chance all the time for a get-away. From some bo on
the drag I managed to learn what time a certain freight pulled out. I
calculated my time accordingly. When the moment came, my pal and I
were in a saloon. Two foaming shupers were before us. I'd have liked
to say good-by. He had been good to me. But I did not dare. I went out
through the rear of the saloon and jumped the fence. It was a swift
sneak, and a few minutes later I was on board a freight and heading
south on the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad.

HOBOES THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT

In the course of my tramping I encountered hundreds of hoboes, whom I
hailed or who hailed me, and with whom I waited at water-tanks,
"boiled-up," cooked "mulligans," "battered" the "drag" or "privates,"
and beat trains, and who passed and were seen never again. On the
other hand, there were hoboes who passed and repassed with amazing
frequency, and others, still, who passed like ghosts, close at hand,
unseen, and never seen.

It was one of the latter that I chased clear across Canada over three
thousand miles of railroad, and