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After he had shaken hands with the ugly, rum-bloated specimens of humanity, Jim had a chance to take a look at the two rooms which were to be his future home, and his thoughts went back to his mother's cleanly kept section house, for the total of the furniture in these rooms consisted of some empty soap boxes which served for chairs, a slime-covered table, a couple of rough wooden benches, a piece of mirror glass that was upheld by nails driven into the bare walls, a range, upon which at this moment a dinner was cooking, and two dilapidated beds, the pillows, blankets and mattresses of which there was no trace of linen were in an even far more filthy condition than the bunks of the "Golden Rule Hotel" at Minneapolis.

"From the fort?" "Yes, from the fort. Open, Pierre!" An instant of hesitation. Creak, creak! Bolts were being withdrawn. Next the door swung open, and we dimly saw the bearded, rum-bloated face of Pierre Lagarde. The lieutenant's ruse had thoroughly deceived him, and at sight of us he was struck dumb.

Then he stepped back a pace and while his hideous, rum-bloated face was made all the more repulsive by his malevolent eyes with which he glared at the shuddering Joe, who only now, that the fiend had revealed his name-de-road recalled and recognized in the person of the beggar, the tramp who had taken charge of his brother James.