BYRNE had no time to pick any particular spot to jump for. When he did jump he might have been directly over a picket fence, or a bottomless pit—he did not know. Nor did he care.
As it happened he was over neither. The platform chanced to be passing across a culvert at the instant. Beneath the culvert was a slimy pool. Into this the two men plunged, alighting unharmed.
Byrne was the first to regain his feet. He dragged the deputy sheriff to his knees, and before that frightened and astonished officer of the law could gather his wits together he had been relieved of his revolver and found himself looking into its cold and business-like muzzle.
Then Billy Byrne waded ashore, prodding the deputy sheriff in the ribs with cold steel, and warning him to silence. Above the pool stood a little wood, thick with tangled wildwood. Into this Byrne forced his prisoner.
When they had come deep enough into the concealment of the foliage to make discovery from the outside improbable Byrne halted.
“Now say yer prayers,” he commanded. “I'm a-going to croak yeh.”
The deputy sheriff looked up at him in wild-eyed terror.
“My God!” he cried. “I ain't done nothin' to you, Byrne. Haven't I always been your friend? What've I ever done to you? For God's sake Byrne you ain't goin' to murder me, are you? They'll get you, sure.”
Billy Byrne let a rather unpleasant smile curl his lips.
“No,” he said, “youse ain't done nothin' to me; but you stand for the law, damn it, and I'm going to croak everything I meet that stands for the law. They wanted to send me up for life—me, an innocent man. Your kind done it—the cops. You ain't no cop; but you're just as rotten. Now say yer prayers.”
He leveled the revolver at his victim's head. The deputy sheriff slumped to his knees and tried to embrace Billy Byrne's legs as he pleaded for his life.
“Cut it out, you poor boob,” admonished Billy. “You've gotta die and if you was half a man you'd wanna die like one.”
The deputy sheriff slipped to the ground. His terror had overcome him, leaving him in happy unconsciousness. Byrne stood looking down upon the man for a moment. His wrist was chained to that of the other, and the pull of the deputy's body was irritating.
Byrne stooped and placed the muzzle of the revolver back of the man's ear. “Justice!” he muttered, scornfully, and his finger tightened upon the trigger.
Then, conjured from nothing, there rose between himself and the unconscious man beside him the figure of a beautiful girl. Her face was brave and smiling, and in her eyes was trust and pride—whole worlds of them. Trust and pride in Billy Byrne.
Billy closed his eyes tight as though in physical pain. He brushed his hand quickly across his face.
“Gawd!” he muttered. “I can't do it—but I came awful close to it.”
Dropping the revolver into his side pocket he kneeled beside the deputy sheriff and commenced to go through the man's clothes. After a moment he came upon what he sought—a key ring confining several keys.
Billy found the one he wished and presently he was free. He still stood looking at the deputy sheriff.
“I ought to croak you,” he murmured. “I'll never make my get-away if I don't; but SHE won't let me—God bless her.”
Suddenly a thought came to Billy Byrne. If he could have a start he might escape. It wouldn't hurt the man any to stay here for a few hours, or even for a day. Billy removed the deputy's coat and tore it into strips. With these he bound the man to a tree. Then he fastened a gag in his mouth.
During the operation the deputy regained consciousness. He looked questioningly at Billy.
“I decided not to croak you,” explained the young man. “I'm just a-goin' to leave you here for a while. They'll be lookin' all along the right o' way in a few hours—it won't be long afore they find you. Now so long, and take care of yerself, bo,” and Billy Byrne had gone.
A mistake that proved fortunate for Billy Byrne caused the penitentiary authorities to expect him and his guard by a later train, so no suspicion was aroused when they failed to come upon the train they really had started upon. This gave Billy a good two hours' start that he would not otherwise have had—an opportunity of which he made good use.
Wherefore it was that by the time the authorities awoke to the fact that something had happened Billy Byrne was fifty miles west of Joliet, bowling along aboard a fast Santa Fe freight. Shortly after night had fallen the train crossed the Mississippi. Billy Byrne was hungry and thirsty, and as the train slowed down and came to a stop out in the midst of a dark solitude of silent, sweet-smelling country, Billy opened the door of his box car and dropped lightly to the ground.
So far no one had seen Billy since he had passed from the ken of the trussed deputy sheriff, and as Billy had no desire to be seen he slipped over the edge of the embankment into a dry ditch, where he squatted upon his haunches waiting for the train to depart. The stop out there in the dark night was one of those mysterious stops which trains are prone to make, unexplained and doubtless unexplainable by any other than a higher intelligence which directs the movements of men and rolling stock. There was no town, and not even a switch light. Presently two staccato blasts broke from the engine's whistle, there was a progressive jerking at coupling pins, which started up at the big locomotive and ran rapidly down the length of the train, there was the squeaking of brake shoes against wheels, and the train moved slowly forward again upon its long journey toward the coast, gaining momentum moment by moment until finally the way-car rolled rapidly past the hidden fugitive and the freight rumbled away to be swallowed up in the darkness.
When it had gone Billy rose and climbed back upon the track, along which he plodded in the wake of the departing train. Somewhere a road would presently cut across the track, and along the road there would be farmhouses or a village where food and drink might be found.
Billy was penniless, yet he had no doubt but that he should eat when he had discovered food. He was thinking of this as he walked briskly toward the west, and what he thought of induced a doubt in his mind as to whether it was, after all, going to be so easy to steal food.
“Shaw!” he exclaimed, half aloud, “she wouldn't think it wrong for a guy to swipe a little grub when he was starvin'. It ain't like I was goin' to stick a guy up for his roll. Sure she wouldn't see nothin' wrong for me to get something to eat. I ain't got no money. They took it all away from me, an' I got a right to live—but, somehow, I hate to do it. I wisht there was some other way. Gee, but she's made a sissy out o' me! Funny how a feller can change. Why I almost like bein' a sissy,” and Billy Byrne grinned at the almost inconceivable idea.
Before Billy came to a road he saw a light down in a little depression at one side of the track. It was not such a light as a lamp shining beyond a window makes. It rose and fell, winking and flaring close to the ground.
It looked much like a camp fire, and as Billy drew nearer he saw that such it was, and he heard a voice, too. Billy approached more carefully. He must be careful always to see before being seen. The little fire burned upon the bank of a stream which the track bridged upon a concrete arch.
Billy dropped once more from the right of way, and climbed a fence into a thin wood. Through this he approached the camp fire with small chance of being observed. As he neared it the voice resolved itself into articulate words, and presently Billy leaned against a tree close behind the speaker and listened.
There was but a single figure beside the small fire—that of a man squatting upon his haunches roasting something above the flames. At one edge of the fire was an empty tin can from which steam arose, and an aroma that was now and again wafted to Billy's nostrils.
Coffee! My, how good it smelled. Billy's mouth watered. But the voice—that interested Billy almost as much as the preparations for the coming meal.
We'll dance a merry saraband from here to drowsy Samarcand.Along the sea, across the land, the birds are flying South,And you, my sweet Penelope, out there somewhere you wait for me,With buds of roses in your hair and kisses on your mouth.
The words took hold of Billy somewhere and made him forget his hunger. Like a sweet incense which induces pleasant daydreams they were wafted in upon him through the rich, mellow voice of the solitary camper, and the lilt of the meter entered his blood.
But the voice. It was the voice of such as Billy Byrne always had loathed and ridiculed until he had sat at the feet of Barbara Harding and learned many things, including love. It was the voice of culture and refinement. Billy strained his eyes through the darkness to have a closer look at the man. The light of the camp fire fell upon frayed and bagging clothes, and upon the back of a head covered by a shapeless, and disreputable soft hat.
Obviously the man was a hobo. The coffee boiling in a discarded tin can would have been proof positive of this without other evidence; but there seemed plenty more. Yes, the man was a hobo. Billy continued to stand listening.
The mountains are all hid in mist, the valley is like amethyst,The poplar leaves they turn and twist, oh, silver, silver green!Out there somewhere along the sea a ship is waiting patiently,While up the beach the bubbles slip with white afloat between.
“Gee!” thought Billy Byrne; “but that's great stuff. I wonder where he gets it. It makes me want to hike until I find that place he's singin' about.”
Billy's thoughts were interrupted by a sound in the wood to one side of him. As he turned his eyes in the direction of the slight noise which had attracted him he saw two men step quietly out and cross toward the man at the camp fire.
These, too, were evidently hobos. Doubtless pals of the poetical one. The latter did not hear them until they were directly behind him. Then he turned slowly and rose as they halted beside his fire.
“Evenin', bo,” said one of the newcomers.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” replied the camper, “welcome to my humble home. Have you dined?”
“Naw,” replied the first speaker, “we ain't; but we're goin' to. Now can the chatter an' duck. There ain't enough fer one here, let alone three. Beat it!” and the man, who was big and burly, assumed a menacing attitude and took a truculent step nearer the solitary camper.
The latter was short and slender. The larger man looked as though he might have eaten him at a single mouthful; but the camper did not flinch.
“You pain me,” he said. “You induce within me a severe and highly localized pain, and furthermore I don't like your whiskers.”
With which apparently irrelevant remark he seized the matted beard of the larger tramp and struck the fellow a quick, sharp blow in the face. Instantly the fellow's companion was upon him; but the camper retained his death grip upon the beard of the now yelling bully and continued to rain blow after blow upon head and face.
Billy Byrne was an interested spectator. He enjoyed a good fight as he enjoyed little else; but presently when the first tramp succeeded in tangling his legs about the legs of his chastiser and dragging him to the ground, and the second tramp seized a heavy stick and ran forward to dash the man's brains out, Billy thought it time to interfere.
Stepping forward he called aloud as he came: “Cut it out, boes! You can't pull off any rough stuff like that with this here sweet singer. Can it! Can it!” as the second tramp raised his stick to strike the now prostrate camper.
As he spoke Billy Byrne broke into a run, and as the stick fell he reached the man's side and swung a blow to the tramp's jaw that sent the fellow spinning backward to the river's brim, where he tottered drunkenly for a moment and then plunged backward into the shallow water.
Then Billy seized the other attacker by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet.
“Do you want some, too, you big stiff?” he inquired.
The man spluttered and tried to break away, striking at Billy as he did so; but a sudden punch, such a punch as Billy Byrne had once handed the surprised Harlem Hurricane, removed from the mind of the tramp the last vestige of any thought he might have harbored to do the newcomer bodily injury, and with it removed all else from the man's mind, temporarily.
As the fellow slumped, unconscious, to the ground, the camper rose to his feet.
“Some wallop you have concealed in your sleeve, my friend,” he said; “place it there!” and he extended a slender, shapely hand.
Billy took it and shook it.
“It don't get under the ribs like those verses of yours, though, bo,” he returned.
“It seems to have insinuated itself beneath this guy's thick skull,” replied the poetical one, “and it's a cinch my verses, nor any other would ever get there.”
The tramp who had plumbed the depths of the creek's foot of water and two feet of soft mud was crawling ashore.
“Whadda YOU want now?” inquired Billy Byrne. “A piece o' soap?”
“I'll get youse yet,” spluttered the moist one through his watery whiskers.
“Ferget it,” admonished Billy, “an' hit the trail.” He pointed toward the railroad right of way. “An' you, too, John L,” he added turning to the other victim of his artistic execution, who was now sitting up. “Hike!”
Mumbling and growling the two unwashed shuffled away, and were presently lost to view along the vanishing track.
The solitary camper had returned to his culinary effort, as unruffled and unconcerned, apparently, as though naught had occurred to disturb his peaceful solitude.
“Sit down,” he said after a moment, looking up at Billy, “and have a bite to eat with me. Take that leather easy chair. The Louis Quatorze is too small and spindle-legged for comfort.” He waved his hand invitingly toward the sward beside the fire.
For a moment he was entirely absorbed in the roasting fowl impaled upon a sharp stick which he held in his right hand. Then he presently broke again into verse.
Around the world and back again; we saw it all. The mist and rainIn England and the hot old plain from Needles to Berdoo.We kept a-rambling all the time. I rustled grub, he rustled rhyme—Blind-baggage, hoof it, ride or climb—we always put it through.
“You're a good sort,” he broke off, suddenly. “There ain't many boes that would have done as much for a fellow.”
“It was two against one,” replied Billy, “an' I don't like them odds. Besides I like your poetry. Where d'ye get it—make it up?”
“Lord, no,” laughed the other. “If I could do that I wouldn't be pan-handling. A guy by the name of Henry Herbert Knibbs did them. Great, ain't they?”
“They sure is. They get me right where I live,” and then, after a pause; “sure you got enough fer two, bo?”
“I have enough for you, old top,” replied the host, “even if I only had half as much as I have. Here, take first crack at the ambrosia. Sorry I have but a single cup; but James has broken the others. James is very careless. Sometimes I almost feel that I shall have to let him go.”
“Who's James?” asked Billy.
“James? Oh, James is my man,” replied the other.
Billy looked up at his companion quizzically, then he tasted the dark, thick concoction in the tin can.
“This is coffee,” he announced. “I thought you said it was ambrose.”
“I only wished to see if you would recognize it, my friend,” replied the poetical one politely. “I am highly complimented that you can guess what it is from its taste.”
For several minutes the two ate in silence, passing the tin can back and forth, and slicing—hacking would be more nearly correct—pieces of meat from the half-roasted fowl. It was Billy who broke the silence.
“I think,” said he, “that you been stringin' me—'bout James and ambrose.”
The other laughed good-naturedly.
“You are not offended, I hope,” said he. “This is a sad old world, you know, and we're all looking for amusement. If a guy has no money to buy it with, he has to manufacture it.”
“Sure, I ain't sore,” Billy assured him. “Say, spiel that part again 'bout Penelope with the kisses on her mouth, an' you can kid me till the cows come home.”
The camper by the creek did as Billy asked him, while the latter sat with his eyes upon the fire seeing in the sputtering little flames the oval face of her who was Penelope to him.
When the verse was completed he reached forth his hand and took the tin can in his strong fingers, raising it before his face.
“Here's to—to his Knibbs!” he said, and drank, passing the battered thing over to his new friend.
“Yes,” said the other; “here's to his Knibbs, and—Penelope!”
“Drink hearty,” returned Billy Byrne.
The poetical one drew a sack of tobacco from his hip pocket and a rumpled package of papers from the pocket of his shirt, extending both toward Billy.
“Want the makings?” he asked.
“I ain't stuck on sponging,” said Billy; “but maybe I can get even some day, and I sure do want a smoke. You see I was frisked. I ain't got nothin'—they didn't leave me a sou markee.”
Billy reached across one end of the fire for the tobacco and cigarette papers. As he did so the movement bared his wrist, and as the firelight fell upon it the marks of the steel bracelet showed vividly. In the fall from the train the metal had bitten into the flesh.
His companion's eyes happened to fall upon the telltale mark. There was an almost imperceptible raising of the man's eyebrows; but he said nothing to indicate that he had noticed anything out of the ordinary.
The two smoked on for many minutes without indulging in conversation. The camper quoted snatches from Service and Kipling, then he came back to Knibbs, who was evidently his favorite. Billy listened and thought.
“Goin' anywheres in particular?” he asked during a momentary lull in the recitation.
“Oh, south or west,” replied the other. “Nowhere in particular—any place suits me just so it isn't north or east.”
“That's me,” said Billy.
“Let's travel double, then,” said the poetical one. “My name's Bridge.”
“And mine's Billy. Here, shake,” and Byrne extended his hand.
“Until one of us gets wearied of the other's company,” said Bridge.
“You're on,” replied Billy. “Let's turn in.”
“Good,” exclaimed Bridge. “I wonder what's keeping James. He should have been here long since to turn down my bed and fix my bath.”
Billy grinned and rolled over on his side, his head uphill and his feet toward the fire. A couple of feet away Bridge paralleled him, and in five minutes both were breathing deeply in healthy slumber.
“'WE KEPT a-rambling all the time. I rustled grub, he rustled rhyme,'” quoted Billy Byrne, sitting up and stretching himself.
His companion roused and came to one elbow. The sun was topping the scant wood behind them, glinting on the surface of the little creek. A robin hopped about the sward quite close to them, and from the branch of a tree a hundred yards away came the sweet piping of a song bird. Farther off were the distance-subdued noises of an awakening farm. The lowing of cows, the crowing of a rooster, the yelping of a happy dog just released from a night of captivity.
Bridge yawned and stretched. Billy rose to his feet and shook himself.
“This is the life,” said Bridge. “Where you going?”
“To rustle grub,” replied Billy. “That's my part o' the sketch.”
The other laughed. “Go to it,” he said. “I hate it. That's the part that has come nearest making me turn respectable than any other. I hate to ask for a hand-out.”
Billy shrugged. He'd done worse things than that in his life, and off he trudged, whistling. He felt happier than he had for many a day. He never had guessed that the country in the morning could be so beautiful.
Behind him his companion collected the material for a fire, washed himself in the creek, and set the tin can, filled with water, at the edge of the kindling, and waited. There was nothing to cook, so it was useless to light the fire. As he sat there, thinking, his mind reverted to the red mark upon Billy's wrist, and he made a wry face.
Billy approached the farmhouse from which the sounds of awakening still emanated. The farmer saw him coming, and ceasing his activities about the barnyard, leaned across a gate and eyed him, none too hospitably.
“I wanna get something to eat,” explained Billy.
“Got any money to pay for it with?” asked the farmer quickly.
“No,” said Billy; “but me partner an' me are hungry, an' we gotta eat.”
The farmer extended a gnarled forefinger and pointed toward the rear of the house. Billy looked in the direction thus indicated and espied a woodpile. He grinned good naturedly.
Without a word he crossed to the corded wood, picked up an ax which was stuck in a chopping block, and, shedding his coat, went to work. The farmer resumed his chores. Half an hour later he stopped on his way in to breakfast and eyed the growing pile that lay beside Billy.
“You don't hev to chop all the wood in the county to get a meal from Jed Watson,” he said.
“I wanna get enough for me partner, too,” explained Billy.
“Well, yew've chopped enough fer two meals, son,” replied the farmer, and turning toward the kitchen door, he called: “Here, Maw, fix this boy up with suthin' t'eat—enough fer a couple of meals fer two on 'em.”
As Billy walked away toward his camp, his arms laden with milk, butter, eggs, a loaf of bread and some cold meat, he grinned rather contentedly.
“A year or so ago,” he mused, “I'd a stuck 'em up fer this, an' thought I was smart. Funny how a feller'll change—an' all fer a skirt. A skirt that belongs to somebody else now, too. Hell! what's the difference, anyhow? She'd be glad if she knew, an' it makes me feel better to act like she'd want. That old farmer guy, now. Who'd ever have taken him fer havin' a heart at all? Wen I seen him first I thought he'd like to sic the dog on me, an' there he comes along an' tells 'Maw' to pass me a hand-out like this! Gee! it's a funny world. She used to say that most everybody was decent if you went at 'em right, an' I guess she knew. She knew most everything, anyway. Lord, I wish she'd been born on Grand Ave., or I on Riverside Drive!”
As Billy walked up to his waiting companion, who had touched a match to the firewood as he sighted the numerous packages in the forager's arms, he was repeating, over and over, as though the words held him in the thrall of fascination: “There ain't no sweet Penelope somewhere that's longing much for me.”
Bridge eyed the packages as Billy deposited them carefully and one at a time upon the grass beside the fire. The milk was in a clean little graniteware pail, the eggs had been placed in a paper bag, while the other articles were wrapped in pieces of newspaper.
As the opening of each revealed its contents, fresh, clean, and inviting, Bridge closed one eye and cocked the other up at Billy.
“Did he die hard?” he inquired.
“Did who die hard?” demanded the other.
“Why the dog, of course.”
“He ain't dead as I know of,” replied Billy.
“You don't mean to say, my friend, that they let you get away with all this without sicing the dog on you,” said Bridge.
Billy laughed and explained, and the other was relieved—the red mark around Billy's wrist persisted in remaining uppermost in Bridge's mind.
When they had eaten they lay back upon the grass and smoked some more of Bridge's tobacco.
“Well,” inquired Bridge, “what's doing now?”
“Let's be hikin',” said Billy.
Bridge rose and stretched. “'My feet are tired and need a change. Come on! It's up to you!'” he quoted.
Billy gathered together the food they had not yet eaten, and made two equal-sized packages of it. He handed one to Bridge.
“We'll divide the pack,” he explained, “and here, drink the rest o' this milk, I want the pail.”
“What are you going to do with the pail?” asked Bridge.
“Return it,” said Billy. “'Maw' just loaned it to me.”
Bridge elevated his eyebrows a trifle. He had been mistaken, after all. At the farmhouse the farmer's wife greeted them kindly, thanked Billy for returning her pail—which, if the truth were known, she had not expected to see again—and gave them each a handful of thick, light, golden-brown cookies, the tops of which were encrusted with sugar.
As they walked away Bridge sighed. “Nothing on earth like a good woman,” he said.
“'Maw,' or 'Penelope'?” asked Billy.
“Either, or both,” replied Bridge. “I have no Penelope, but I did have a mighty fine 'maw'.”
Billy made no reply. He was thinking of the slovenly, blear-eyed woman who had brought him into the world. The memory was far from pleasant. He tried to shake it off.
“'Bridge,'” he said, quite suddenly, and apropos of nothing, in an effort to change the subject. “That's an odd name. I've heard of Bridges and Bridger; but I never heard Bridge before.”
“Just a name a fellow gave me once up on the Yukon,” explained Bridge. “I used to use a few words he'd never heard before, so he called me 'The Unabridged,' which was too long. The fellows shortened it to 'Bridge' and it stuck. It has always stuck, and now I haven't any other. I even think of myself, now, as Bridge. Funny, ain't it?”
“Yes,” agreed Billy, and that was the end of it. He never thought of asking his companion's true name, any more than Bridge would have questioned him as to his, or of his past. The ethics of the roadside fire and the empty tomato tin do not countenance such impertinences.
For several days the two continued their leisurely way toward Kansas City. Once they rode a few miles on a freight train, but for the most part they were content to plod joyously along the dusty highways. Billy continued to “rustle grub,” while Bridge relieved the monotony by an occasional burst of poetry.
“You know so much of that stuff,” said Billy as they were smoking by their camp fire one evening, “that I'd think you'd be able to make some up yourself.”
“I've tried,” admitted Bridge; “but there always seems to be something lacking in my stuff—it don't get under your belt—the divine afflatus is not there. I may start out all right, but I always end up where I didn't expect to go, and where nobody wants to be.”
“'Member any of it?” asked Billy.
“There was one I wrote about a lake where I camped once,” said Bridge, reminiscently; “but I can only recall one stanza.”
“Let's have it,” urged Billy. “I bet it has Knibbs hangin' to the ropes.”
Bridge cleared his throat, and recited:
Silver are the ripples,Solemn are the dunes,Happy are the fishes,For they are full of prunes.
He looked up at Billy, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “How's that?” he asked.
Billy scratched his head.
“It's all right but the last line,” said Billy, candidly. “There is something wrong with that last line.”
“Yes,” agreed Bridge, “there is.”
“I guess Knibbs is safe for another round at least,” said Billy.
Bridge was eying his companion, noting the broad shoulders, the deep chest, the mighty forearm and biceps which the other's light cotton shirt could not conceal.
“It is none of my business,” he said presently; “but from your general appearance, from bits of idiom you occasionally drop, and from the way you handled those two boes the night we met I should rather surmise that at some time or other you had been less than a thousand miles from the w.k. roped arena.”
“I seen a prize fight once,” admitted Billy.
It was the day before they were due to arrive in Kansas City that Billy earned a hand-out from a restaurant keeper in a small town by doing some odd jobs for the man. The food he gave Billy was wrapped in an old copy of the Kansas City Star. When Billy reached camp he tossed the package to Bridge, who, in addition to his honorable post as poet laureate, was also cook. Then Billy walked down to the stream, near-by, that he might wash away the grime and sweat of honest toil from his hands and face.
As Bridge unwrapped the package and the paper unfolded beneath his eyes an article caught his attention—just casually at first; but presently to the exclusion of all else. As he read his eyebrows alternated between a position of considerable elevation to that of a deep frown. Occasionally he nodded knowingly. Finally he glanced up at Billy who was just rising from his ablutions. Hastily Bridge tore from the paper the article that had attracted his interest, folded it, and stuffed it into one of his pockets—he had not had time to finish the reading and he wanted to save the article for a later opportunity for careful perusal.
That evening Bridge sat for a long time scrutinizing Billy through half-closed lids, and often he found his eyes wandering to the red ring about the other's wrist; but whatever may have been within his thoughts he kept to himself.
It was noon when the two sauntered into Kansas City. Billy had a dollar in his pocket—a whole dollar. He had earned it assisting an automobilist out of a ditch.
“We'll have a swell feed,” he had confided to Bridge, “an' sleep in a bed just to learn how much nicer it is sleepin' out under the black sky and the shiny little stars.”
“You're a profligate, Billy,” said Bridge.
“I dunno what that means,” said Billy; “but if it's something I shouldn't be I probably am.”
The two went to a rooming-house of which Bridge knew, where they could get a clean room with a double bed for fifty cents. It was rather a high price to pay, of course, but Bridge was more or less fastidious, and he admitted to Billy that he'd rather sleep in the clean dirt of the roadside than in the breed of dirt one finds in an unclean bed.
At the end of the hall was a washroom, and toward this Bridge made his way, after removing his coat and throwing it across the foot of the bed. After he had left the room Billy chanced to notice a folded bit of newspaper on the floor beneath Bridge's coat. He picked it up to lay it on the little table which answered the purpose of a dresser when a single word caught his attention. It was a name: Schneider.
Billy unfolded the clipping and as his eyes took in the heading a strange expression entered them—a hard, cold gleam such as had not touched them since the day that he abandoned the deputy sheriff in the woods midway between Chicago and Joliet.
This is what Billy read:
Billy Byrne, sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet penitentiary for the murder of Schneider, the old West Side saloon keeper, hurled himself from the train that was bearing him to Joliet yesterday, dragging with him the deputy sheriff to whom he was handcuffed.
The deputy was found a few hours later bound and gagged, lying in the woods along the Santa Fe, not far from Lemont. He was uninjured. He says that Byrne got a good start, and doubtless took advantage of it to return to Chicago, where a man of his stamp could find more numerous and safer retreats than elsewhere.
There was much more—a detailed account of the crime for the commission of which Billy had been sentenced, a full and complete description of Billy, a record of his long years of transgression, and, at last, the mention of a five-hundred-dollar reward that the authorities had offered for information that would lead to his arrest.
When Billy had concluded the reading he refolded the paper and placed it in a pocket of the coat hanging upon the foot of the bed. A moment later Bridge entered the room. Billy caught himself looking often at his companion, and always there came to his mind the termination of the article he had found in Bridge's pocket—the mention of the five-hundred-dollar reward.
“Five hundred dollars,” thought Billy, “is a lot o' coin. I just wonder now,” and he let his eyes wander to his companion as though he might read upon his face the purpose which lay in the man's heart. “He don't look it; but five hundred dollars is a lot o' coin—fer a bo, and wotinell did he have that article hid in his clothes fer? That's wot I'd like to know. I guess it's up to me to blow.”
All the recently acquired content which had been Billy's since he had come upon the poetic Bridge and the two had made their carefree, leisurely way along shaded country roadsides, or paused beside cool brooklets that meandered lazily through sweet-smelling meadows, was dissipated in the instant that he had realized the nature of the article his companion had been carrying and hiding from him.
For days no thought of pursuit or capture had arisen to perplex him. He had seemed such a tiny thing out there amidst the vastness of rolling hills, of woods, and plain that there had been induced within him an unconscious assurance that no one could find him even though they might seek for him.
The idea of meeting a plain clothes man from detective headquarters around the next bend of a peaceful Missouri road was so preposterous and incongruous that Billy had found it impossible to give the matter serious thought.
He never before had been in the country districts of his native land. To him the United States was all like Chicago or New York or Milwaukee, the three cities with which he was most familiar. His experience of unurban localities had been gained amidst the primeval jungles of far-away Yoka. There had been no detective sergeants there—unquestionably there could be none here. Detective sergeants were indigenous to the soil that grew corner saloons and poolrooms, and to none other—as well expect to discover one of Oda Yorimoto's samurai hiding behind a fire plug on Michigan Boulevard, as to look for one of those others along a farm-bordered road.
But here in Kansas City, amidst the noises and odors that meant a large city, it was different. Here the next man he met might be looking for him, or if not then the very first policeman they encountered could arrest him upon a word from Bridge—and Bridge would get five hundred dollars. Just then Bridge burst forth into poetry:
In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,Here, pal, is my calloused hand!Oh, I love each day as a rover may,Nor seek to understand.To enjoy is good enough for me;The gypsy of God am I.Then here's a hail to—
“Say,” he interrupted himself; “what's the matter with going out now and wrapping ourselves around that swell feed you were speaking of?”
Billy rose. It didn't seem possible that Bridge could be going to double-cross him.
In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Billy repeated the lines half aloud. They renewed his confidence in Bridge, somehow.
“Like them?” asked the latter.
“Yes,” said Billy; “s'more of Knibbs?”
“No, Service. Come on, let's go and dine. How about the Midland?” and he grinned at his little joke as he led the way toward the street.
It was late afternoon. The sun already had set; but it still was too light for lamps. Bridge led the way toward a certain eating-place of which he knew where a man might dine well and from a clean platter for two bits. Billy had been keeping his eyes open for detectives. They had passed no uniformed police—that would be the crucial test, thought he—unless Bridge intended tipping off headquarters on the quiet and having the pinch made at night after Billy had gone to bed.
As they reached the little restaurant, which was in a basement, Bridge motioned Billy down ahead of him. Just for an instant he, himself, paused at the head of the stairs and looked about. As he did so a man stepped from the shadow of a doorway upon the opposite side of the street.
If Bridge saw him he apparently gave no sign, for he turned slowly and with deliberate steps followed Billy down into the eating-place.
AS THEY entered the place Billy, who was ahead, sought a table; but as he was about to hang up his cap and seat himself Bridge touched his elbow.
“Let's go to the washroom and clean up a bit,” he said, in a voice that might be heard by those nearest.
“Why, we just washed before we left our room,” expostulated Billy.
“Shut up and follow me,” Bridge whispered into his ear.
Immediately Billy was all suspicion. His hand flew to the pocket in which the gun of the deputy sheriff still rested. They would never take him alive, of that Billy was positive. He wouldn't go back to life imprisonment, not after he had tasted the sweet freedom of the wide spaces—such a freedom as the trammeled city cannot offer.
Bridge saw the movement.
“Cut it,” he whispered, “and follow me, as I tell you. I just saw a Chicago dick across the street. He may not have seen you, but it looked almighty like it. He'll be down here in about two seconds now. Come on—we'll beat it through the rear—I know the way.”
Billy Byrne heaved a great sigh of relief. Suddenly he was almost reconciled to the thought of capture, for in the instant he had realized that it had not been so much his freedom that he had dreaded to lose as his faith in the companion in whom he had believed.
Without sign of haste the two walked the length of the room and disappeared through the doorway leading into the washroom. Before them was a window opening upon a squalid back yard. The building stood upon a hillside, so that while the entrance to the eating-place was below the level of the street in front, its rear was flush with the ground.
Bridge motioned Billy to climb through the window while he shot the bolt upon the inside of the door leading back into the restaurant. A moment later he followed the fugitive, and then took the lead.
Down narrow, dirty alleys, and through litter-piled back yards he made his way, while Billy followed at his heels. Dusk was gathering, and before they had gone far darkness came.
They neither paused nor spoke until they had left the business portion of the city behind and were well out of the zone of bright lights. Bridge was the first to break the silence.
“I suppose you wonder how I knew,” he said.
“No,” replied Billy. “I seen that clipping you got in your pocket—it fell out on the floor when you took your coat off in the room this afternoon to go and wash.”
“Oh,” said Bridge, “I see. Well, as far as I'm concerned that's the end of it—we won't mention it again, old man. I don't need to tell you that I'm for you.”
“No, not after tonight,” Billy assured him.
They went on again for some little time without speaking, then Billy said:
“I got two things to tell you. The first is that after I seen that newspaper article in your clothes I thought you was figurin' on double-crossin' me an' claimin' the five hun. I ought to of known better. The other is that I didn't kill Schneider. I wasn't near his place that night—an' that's straight.”
“I'm glad you told me both,” said Bridge. “I think we'll understand each other better after this—we're each runnin' away from something. We'll run together, eh?” and he extended his hand. “In flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt, here, pal, is my calloused hand!” he quoted, laughing.
Billy took the other's hand. He noticed that Bridge hadn't said what HE was running away from. Billy wondered; but asked no questions.
South they went after they had left the city behind, out into the sweet and silent darkness of the country. During the night they crossed the line into Kansas, and morning found them in a beautiful, hilly country to which all thoughts of cities, crime, and police seemed so utterly foreign that Billy could scarce believe that only a few hours before a Chicago detective had been less than a hundred feet from him.
The new sun burst upon them as they topped a grassy hill. The dew-bespangled blades scintillated beneath the gorgeous rays which would presently sweep them away again into the nothingness from which they had sprung.
Bridge halted and stretched himself. He threw his head back and let the warm sun beat down upon his bronzed face.