places for the satiated tramps and their road kids, and gradually as
their cigarettes burned low and their coarse conversation lagged, all of
them, greatly assisted by the strong drink they had swallowed, dozed
away.

All of them--with the exception of James McDonald, who had not yet
sunken to the sodden level of these brutes in human forms who lay
scattered about the two rooms, dead to the world in maudlin sleep,
proving themselves to be living models of every stage of the decaying
influences of hobo life, from men whose countenances had been turned
into bloated visages down to the pale faces of the younger boys who had
just commenced to feel the curse of the lives which they had been forced
by these jockers to lead.

While Jim sat amongst them upon an empty upturned soap box, his eyes
wandered from one to the other of these wretched beings, who from this
time on would be his pals and companions and whose lives gave him a
vivid picture of what his own future would be. Suddenly the blood welled
up in him, and although he knew that hundreds of miles of unknown
country separated him from his home and mother, one desire outbalanced
everything, that was the wish to escape the fate of these hoboes and the
longer he looked at the alcohol disfigured masks of these human vultures
who, too, had once been clean and manly lads, the more fierce became his
resolve to now or never escape the clutches of Kansas Shorty, who was
sleeping as heavily as the others.

He scanned again the face of each one of the hoboes, and especially that
of Kansas Shorty, and after he had assured himself that all were soundly
sleeping he carefully stepped over the bodies of those who lay between
him and his liberty--the door that led into the hallway--but as he