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Just as Barker neared Stannard's, at the head of the row, two cloaked and hooded forms hurried forth, and Barker almost collided with them. "Oh, good evening, Miss Kate! Good evening, Miss Arnold!" was his embarrassed greeting. Then, with attempt at jocularity for which he later could have kicked himself: "I'm just in time to see you home, and head off hobgoblins and hoboes."

"Gipsies!" called another. "Plain hoboes!" from a third. "It's a gang of juvenile desperadoes escaped from some reformatory," declared a fourth. "Rah, rah, rah!" With noisy yells the eight young men descended upon the camp. "Don't you think you'd better steer off?" called Dave, putting himself as much as he could in their way.

Now, I realize that this bunch of boys may sound very commonplace to the average reader, but we went through more than one hell together and I found them white clear through, and heroes every one of them. They included farmers, firemen, business men, university men, hoboes, and socialists.

The East hadn't the slightest intention of giving free transportation to two thousand hoboes. Kelly's Army lay helplessly for some time at Council Bluffs. The day I joined it, made desperate by delay, it marched out to capture a train. It was quite an imposing sight.

What was there to fear? Bloomsbury was a peaceful community. Rarely did anything occur to indicate that a spirit of lawlessness was abroad. Occasionally the police had some trouble with wandering tramps, but Chief Waller's strong point seemed to lie in that direction, and as a rule hoboes gave Bloomsbury a wide berth.

Men died of whisky; but then, too, fishermen were capsized and drowned, hoboes fell under trains and were cut to pieces. To cope with winds and waves, railroad trains, and bar-rooms, one must use judgment. To get drunk after the manner of men was all right, but one must do it with discretion. No more quarts of whisky for me.

He was dusty and travel-stained, but nothing seemed to stale his genial good-humor. "Well, well, Mr. Lidgerwood! so the hoboes have asked to see your hand, at last, have they?" he began sympathetically. "I heard of it over in Copah, just in good time to let me catch 203. You're not going to let them make you show down, are you?" "No," said Lidgerwood.

"Brought up at it," said Hal, made wise, now, in the ways of the world. "Where did you work?" Hal named several mines, concerning which he had learned something from the hoboes. He was going by the name of "Joe Smith," which he judged likely to be found on the payroll of any mine. He had more than a week's growth of beard to disguise him, and had picked up some profanity as well.

At some word from the man in the centre, all three halted, and he of the centre addressed me. I piped the lay on the instant. He was a "fly-cop" and the two hoboes were his prisoners. John Law was up and out after the early worm. I was a worm. Had I been richer by the experiences that were to befall me in the next several months, I should have turned and run like the very devil.

We might be peddlers, or we might be "hoboes," but there was a disquieting uncertainty about us, and we felt it necessary occasionally to make reassuring explanations.