They carried Jim to the city prison and locked him into a dark dungeon,
from which, after several hours of solitary confinement, three
detectives took him into the chief of police's office and there pleaded
with him to reveal the whereabouts of his jocker, as they were well
aware that this lad was merely a tool in the hands of some designing
scoundrel, but Jim, as all the other road kids before him have done,
refused to divulge the least word that would have caused his jocker's
apprehension.

Finding that pleading and threats were unavailing, the officers in their
efforts to catch the man "higher up" swore at Jim, then cuffed him and
finally, angry at the stubborn silence of the boy, they beat him
dreadfully, but even this punishment was in vain for Jim ever repeated
in his mind at every cuff and lick he received, that Kansas Shorty had
his mother's correct address and that this scoundrel would do far worse
than merely murder him, should Jim fail to keep the promise not to tell
who was his jocker.

Unable to extort a word from Jim that would lead to the arrest of his
jocker, the officers dragged the staggering, heart-broken lad back to
his cell and locked him up. When from sheer exhaustion he fell asleep
late in the night, he dreamed that Kansas Shorty's grinning face was
pressed against his steel-barred cell door. "Jim, Jim," he could
distinctly hear the scoundrel say mocking him in his helplessness, "come
on, Jim, let us go and peddle needle cases and loot more houses." Jim
leaped from his bunk at Kansas Shorty's throat, as if he were a wounded
tiger, to strangle with his bare hands the fiend who had so wantonly
spoiled his life, but he only gripped the cold steel bars of his cell
and awakened, then as he sank back upon the edge of the prison-bunk, he
realized that now it was too late--and he burst into bitter tears.