"Slippery, the Yegg."
After Slippery, the Yegg, and Joe had parted company with Kansas Shorty
and Jim, they walked leisurely southward upon the railroad track. For
some time their conversation lagged, as Slippery was absorbed in
thoughts centering upon the boy who was walking by his side. Slippery
had up to this moment lived strictly in accord with the laws laid down
by the "Code of Crime", the rules of which, although not printed and
bound into a costly volume, nor even written, are nevertheless strictly
observed by those who defy law and order.
A tradition of this unwritten code was to the effect that a "wise" yegg
must never have a minor hoboing with him about the country, as not only
would the youngster be of little value when committing a crime and a
most decided handicap in making a getaway, but the greatest of danger
lay in the fact that should they be arrested, the boy would be more than
likely to not only reveal all he knew of the latest exploit of the yegg
and tell everything he had seen and heard since their first day's
comradeship, but he would undoubtedly turn state's evidence, and help to
send the yegg to the penitentiary for a long term. Slippery also weighed
the chances which he faced should he by misfortune "ramble" into other
"brethren of the gun" who happened to be abroad in the land, especially
along oft-traveled routes like those between St. Paul and Chicago, as
they would not only frown upon a yegg who had offended the ethics of
their clan by having a road kid traveling with him, but they would
quickly spread the fact broadcast throughout the land to the detriment
of the heretofore good reputation Slippery had enjoyed amongst the
numerous members of the "Fraternity of the Dark Lantern."
As a result of these reflections he decided to rid himself of Joe's
company as soon as possible, and the easiest and fairest method he could
think about to pull himself out of this dilemma was to find a job for
the boy upon one of the many farms which were scattered along the right
of way.
After having tried for hours to find some sort of a job for the boy,
Slippery, thoroughly disgusted at his vain efforts to rid himself of his
unwelcome companion, whom he considered by this time a nuisance, decided
that the next best plan would be to take Joe to Chicago and find there a
employment for him. Then the fact that they were supposed to meet the
others at the "big oak" in the evening flashed through his mind, and
that perhaps on account of this, Joe would object to hoboing any sort of
train.
In furtherance of this plan Slippery visited several additional farm
houses to seek employment for the boy, acting after each failure even
more discouraged than ever in not being able to find a job, and his
disgust increased to such a degree, that it finally became an easy
matter for him to have the lad consent that they quit their resultless
efforts in this line and instead strive to reach the "big oak" that
Slippery assured Joe was growing close to the right of way several miles
to the south of them, and there meet the others, whom he had no doubt
had had no better success in finding employment.
Slippery now began to paint in most wonderful colors for his younger
companion, word-pictures of the grand sights and scenes which were
awaiting their arrival at Chicago, and unintentionally drifted into
describing the many cases he had heard about, where penniless boys there
had risen in a comparatively short time to the rank of
multimillionaires.
Joe, who until now paid more attention to the rough, stone ballasted
track beneath his feet that made walking a hardship, became greatly
interested in the subject that Slippery had reached in his conversation,
as it concerned the same matter that Jim and he had threshed out so many
times before they left their section home at Rugby, and when Slippery
spoke in glowing terms of the many advantages that employment in a large
city like Chicago held out to a hustling lad, Joe threw all his troubles
to the winds and laid bare to his older comrade every movement since his
childhood, and finally came to the point where he and Jim had planned to
run away to a city and there by watching for every chance of advancement
offered them, and by saving every cent and especially by adhering
strictly to honesty, had intended to work their way up the ladder of
success until they had reached a respected and independent position.
After he had paused to take a second breath, with a true boyish fervor,
he commenced to build aircastles as to what he would do when the day
arrived when they would not have to look so closely to the saving of
their pennies. The more enthusiastically Joe spoke of this bright
future, the less he became aware that his hopes had caused the answers
he received to his many questions he asked his older companion to become
more curt and sullen, nor did he realize that every word he spoke
stabbed Slippery's conscience as if it were a two-edged dagger.
Slippery, although he belonged to the the yeggs, had like ninety-nine
out of every hundred of his kind, been in his youth a harmless boy who
had been enticed by some good-for-nothing tramp to forsake his home, and
showing more ambition than to end his days as an alcohol-rotted wreck,
had drifted along with criminals, who for the sake of a few dollars or
even a handful of unused postage stamps did not hesitate to commit
murder, and who had in time taught Slippery the various divisions and
subdivisions of their dangerous existence.
Now that Slippery was barely thirty years of age, he was, although young
in years, old in crime and had been in many collisions with those who
represented law and order, and had served many long terms at hard labor
behind the stone walls of state and federal penitentiaries.
One evening, just before Slippery had finished his last sentence, after
the prisoners had been locked up for the night, his cell-mate in a
spirit of fun suggested that, to while away the time until the lights
would be turned low, they compute the average daily wage their
crime-steeped lives had earned for them. Although both were regarded by
their brethren of crime as most successful in their chosen profession,
they found after tedious calculating that the average daily wage of
their miserable existence since the day they left their homes had been a
fraction less than twenty cents. In this total they did not include the
many years they spent behind prison bars, performing, without pay,
ambition crushing toil under the eyes of brutal guards, fed upon poor
food, sleeping in unhealthy quarters, dressed in coarse, zebra-striped
suits and ruled by a most cruel discipline, all of which they were
unable to reduce to a dollar and cents basis.
Until that evening his bosom friends had been other equally desperate
criminals, as misery loves company, but even few of these could he
trust, as "stool pigeons" far outnumbered those whom he could
implicitly depend upon and even amongst the few, only too many were
snatched from his side by the stern hand of the law to linger for years
in penal institutions, if they did not become targets for revolvers or
were strangled upon a gallows. The more he thought of this shady side of
his past, the more changed became the point of view with which he judged
the rest of the world. The laborer whom he saw in the early morning
swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily
task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk
after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying
home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he
had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man
who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg he could
recall.
A strange yearning to join those who carried the dinner pails and who
had homes and firesides of their own made itself felt, and still later
this desire to foreswear his past and reform became ever stronger,
especially when one day by a singular chance he happened during recess
to pass a school house, and stepping behind a tree from where with a
wistful look in his eyes he watched the rosy-cheeked, romping children,
while at the same time revolting pictures of his own misspent life and
thoughts of the far worse to-be-spent future, and the fact that he had
been heretofore his own worst enemy came so strongly to his mind that
he could barely keep himself from sobbing.
From that evening when he for the first time in his whole life, studied
the life of a yegg from a commonsense and strictly commercial side and
found it in all its phases a losing game, dated the desire to quit the
life of crime when the first opportunity presented itself, but whenever
he tried to picture himself as having a happy home of his own, there,
like a black cloud suspended in a blue sky, came to him the knowledge
that never more could he hide his past, for from the moment that he
should endeavor to walk the narrow path, every yegg in the land would
point to him as a former brother-in-crime, and gossiping tongues would
quickly force him back into the fold, even while with his calloused
hands he would be toiling to earn an honest living.
While all of these pictures of his past flashed through his active mind
and the desire to be for just one time, a man who needed not to be
afraid to associate with honest people, he attentively listened to the
boy who was just now unfolding his plans for a bright future, and who
was telling about his section home by the side of the railroad track in
the midst of the endless prairies of the Dakotas, and although he
described the siding of Rugby as being a most desolate place, the desire
to reform became almost irresistible to Slippery when Joe told how every
evening the railroad laborers returned to their humble quarters worn and
tired out by the hard toil of the day, but happy with the satisfaction
that by performing their task they had added their share to the world's
work for the common good of all humanity.
This was the boy of whose most unwelcome company only a few minutes
before Slippery had wished to rid himself as he considered him a serious
handicap to his career as a professional criminal, and who was now
telling of his plans, how he wished to atone by leading an honest life
for the wrong he had done to his widowed mother by leaving his home
without her consent, and as he continued to speak of his hopes of a
clean and glorious living, the same queer feeling that had attacked him
before came with ever increasing force over Slippery, and it almost
stunned him when the lad with his true-ringing, youthful voice,
exclaimed, "Slippery, you are going to be my partner, for all of us
working together can accomplish much more in Chicago to make our way to
wealth and fame than we two could. And then, when we have made our
fortune, I will want you to come back with us to Rugby and stay with us,
even if you have to buy for yourself a prairie farm, for I know mother
will wish that you stop with us, because she will always thank you for
having taken such good care of her Joe." After he had given vent to this
boyish dream he paused, expecting to receive an answer from his older
companion, but Slippery only nodded in assent, while at the same time he
rubbed his eyes with his hands as if tiny cinders had lodged in them.
His emotions caused him to avert his face so Joe could not see the tears
of repentance which his hurting conscience forced to run down his
cheeks. And then his better self got the master hand over him and he
silently swore that at this moment had arrived the oft wished for
opportunity for him to forsake the road and quit the crooked game of
crime.
Now came Slippery's time to make plans. His first thoughts were to
discover the best method to fullfil the promise he had just made to
himself to lead a new and different life. The best method as it appeared
to him would be for Joe and himself to ramble on to Chicago and there
procure employment, as he realized that to separate from his younger
companion would mean to him a rapid drifting back into his old ways.
This plan looked mighty good and he slyly chuckled as he thought that it
would be only a short time until his pay envelope would bulge from the
sum to which his wage would quickly increase, for he felt assured that
it would be an easy matter for him to be advanced into an ever better
salaried position, for a man who had the nerve to attempt to force a
living for himself from the world by means of the dangerous ways of
crime could easily accomplish anything once his perverted ambitions were
directed into the straight and narrow path. But suddenly his smiles
ceased and he felt a queer shuddering sensation shake his spine, for he
thought of the many criminals who made their headquarters in Chicago,
and who would be only too willing to spoil his plans to quit their
company and reform, so as to keep others of the brotherhood from
quitting the game and thereby making it all the more hazardous for
hardened and irreformable criminals to ply their nefarious vocations. He
weighed the chances he stood to reform in Chicago and abandoned the
scheme as impracticable.
Then Slippery recalled Jim's narrative of his lone prairie section home,
and he adroitly questioned the lad and discovered that the country about
Rugby was a desolate prairie, that post offices and banks were few,
widely scattered and poorly patronized, and that Joe had never heard of
any one of these being robbed, nor even a residence or farm house being
entered, and when the lad finished by telling of the fertility of the
soil and the fact that homesteads could still be had there for the mere
filing of the necessary claims, Slippery again became absorbed in his
thoughts.
Then he had a vision. He saw himself drilling into a safe. Then came a
dull explosion and when the safe's door was torn from its hinges he saw
himself upon his knees filling a large bag with the gold coins which
poured out of the dynamited treasure box. Then he saw Joe and himself
dressed in the best that money could purchase, speeding along aboard a
Pullman to Rugby, North Dakota. He felt the hearty hand grip as Joe's
mother thanked him for having kept her boy from coming to harm, and when
he saw himself the prosperous owner of an immense and well worked farm,
he then and there swore a silent but nevertheless solemn oath that
after the next successful safe-blowing exploit he would do exactly as
this vision had showed him would be the best method to turn over a new
page of his life.
"Look out, Slippery, jump for your life!" suddenly came a frightened cry
from Joe's lips, and instinctively Slippery followed Joe's example and
leaped off the track, upon which they had been so peacefully walking,
blissfully ignorant of how close to death they had come. In the next
fraction of a second a "Limited" thundered past them, whose ashen-faced
engineer was frantically pulling at the whistling cord and blowing the
danger signal, while he shook an angry fist at the frightened fellows,
who had so narrowly escaped an impending calamity.
"Joe," stammered Slippery, when he again found his voice that from sheer
fright failed him for some moments, "boy, you have saved my life and
come what may I shall stay and work with you and then after we have made
a 'stake' we will go to Rugby and I shall buy a farm and make my home
near your home and finish my days in peace and plenty."
From this moment Slippery became a different kind of companion to his
younger comrade, and while both now entered into an animated
conversation, Joe came to the conclusion that Slippery after all was the
best chum he had ever had. They were so busily engaged picturing their
futures, that not until evening approached did Joe make any remark
concerning the whereabouts of the "big oak" where they were to meet Jim
and Kansas Shorty.
[Illustration: "Jump for your life!" suddenly shouted the lad, and both
leaped off the track, escaping by a hair's breadth being struck by the
flying passenger train.]
They were just approaching a water tank, the destination Slippery
intended to reach, and pointing at a large oak close to the track he
told Joe that it was the place where he had agreed to meet the others.
They went over to it, and after they had made for themselves some
coffee, they sat beneath the wide spreading branches of the oak and
while dusk turned into night and the calls of the owls echoed over
fields and moor, and the moon cast its pale light over the landscape,
they patiently waited the arrival of the others. The longer they
waited and the more anxious Joe became to meet his twin brother again,
the more Slippery denounced Kansas Shorty's tardiness, and when midnight
arrived and they heard in the distance to the north of them the rumbling
of a train, Slippery had so completely won the confidence of Joe, that
the latter consented to accompany the yegg to Chicago without waiting
for the arrival of the others, whereupon Slippery tore a page out of his
memorandum and after writing on it a brief note, telling Kansas Shorty
that he and Joe had rambled into Chicago, and to meet them there, he
silenced any rising suspicions Joe might have had that everything was
not all right by pinning this note to the trunk of the tree.
When the train, which proved to be a long string of empty, open box
cars, pulled southward, after having filled its engine's tender at the
water tank, Slippery and Joe had safely stowed themselves away in one of
the "empties" and were soon rolling on towards Chicago, and had become a
most contented pair of hobo-partners.
Early on the third morning they landed at Chicago, and Joe found that
Slippery's tales as to the magnitude of this city had not been
exaggerated, for they rode hours and miles upon horseless "cable" cars
before Slippery beckoned to Joe to follow him, as they had arrived at
their destination, the center of the city's business district.
After eating their breakfast in a restaurant, they sauntered through the
streets to see the sights. While they walked aimlessly about the city,
Slippery acted at times so strangely that he called the attention of Joe
to him, who did not suspect the reason of his singular demeanor, nor
that he was walking with a man who in police circles had earned a well
merited reputation of being one of the most desperate criminals in the
land. Whenever Slippery would spot a policeman ahead of him he would
turn into an alley or by-way to avoid passing the guardian of the law.
At other times, just after they had passed some well dressed and often
really benign looking citizen, Slippery would roughly nudge him and
whisper, "that was one of those 'fly mugs'--a detective", and then it
would be some moments before he reverted to his former cheerfulness,
proving to Joe how much he feared or despised those who uphold the law.
The ringing of the church bells had just announced the noon hour, when
Slippery was stopped in the street by a neatly attired gentleman, who,
after they had most cordially shaken hands, entered into a whispered
conversation, which Joe overheard.
"Hello, Slippery, old boy, when did you find your way back to Chicago?"
were the first words of the stranger's greeting, who acted as if he were
greatly pleased with the return of Joe's pal to the "Windy City." "I too
am glad to be once more where one's eyes do not tire looking into
nothingness, bounded only by the horizon and the blue sky," answered
Slippery, and then in a whisper, he added: "Say, Boston Frank, give me a
square tip where Bunko Bill's gang is, so I can find a temporary hangout
until I get straight as to the lay of the land." "Oh, is that what you
wish to know, Slippery? Well they are in a private flat on South Clark,
just below LaSalle Street, second house from the corner, on the fifth
floor, and a dandy place at that, but," here he paused and with an
ill-disguised look of resentment he stared at Joe and then queried:
"Slippery, whose boy have you toting along with you?" And as Slippery
did not promptly answer him he added with contempt in his voice, "I
always understood that only a low-lived plinger dragged a road kid about
with him and never a proper crook." Then to Joe's terror, he heard the
man whom he had until this moment taken to be as honorable as his own
late father answer: "Boston Frank, this lad is the wisest and shrewdest
young crook that ever walked the streets of Chicago." This explanation
pleased Boston Frank, who now asked Slippery to introduce him to the
lad, which the former did, using his new nickname, "Dakota Joe."
Listening to their further conversation, to his horror Joe became for
the first time aware that Slippery was not a man looking for an honest
job, but a criminal whose dislike for the police, which he had so openly
manifested, was the natural result of the life he had been leading. Joe
decided to keep this unpleasant discovery to himself, as he was a
penniless lad in the center of an immense city.
When they parted company with Boston Frank, Slippery and Joe found the
house that he had described to be the "gang's" hangout, and after they
had climbed five flights up a narrow stairway, Slippery rang the door
bell of a flat. A shutter in the panel of the door that fitted so
perfectly into an opening that Joe did not observe its presence before,
was withdrawn and from behind a heavy wire screen a pair of glistening,
suspicious eyes searched their faces, and then a voice demanded what
they desired. Instead of an answer Slippery gave some differently
sounding knocks upon the panel above the screened opening and whispered,
"It's I, Slippery, the yegg."
Joe could distinctly hear the same person who had carefully replaced the
shutter over the once more invisible spy-opening unbolt, then unlock and
finally slowly open the door, and after she, a middle-aged woman, had
again most suspiciously scanned the features of her visitors, she
permitted Slippery and Joe to slip within the slightly opened door, that
she promptly shut, and then bolted and carefully locked, as if the flat,
instead of a home for human beings was a safe-deposit vault of an
immensely rich bank.
"Hello, Marie," Slippery addressed the woman after she had tried the
door knob to assure herself that the steel sheeted door was as correctly
closed as before she opened it, "how are you and the rest of the gang?"
And while they shook hands Joe looked about in the semi-darkness of the
hallway trying to see some members of the gang Slippery had spoken about
when he inquired of Boston Frank as to their whereabouts, and about
whom he had just repeated the question, which to Joe seemed odd because
there was not a sound to be heard in the flat, that, as it was supposed
to be the home of a "gang", should have at least shown these signs of
human habitation.
After the woman and Slippery had exchanged other brief greetings all
three went towards the rear of the hallway, and here she opened a door
and bade them enter, and by the brilliant illumination they saw it was
the dining room of the fiat. Around its well provisioned dinner table
were seated a number of men and women who in a most friendly, but noise
avoiding manner, greeted Slippery and while they questioned him as to
his latest movements, they gave Joe a chance to recover from the
surprise that completely shocked him, when he discovered that this
strangely secluded flat was the home of seven men and four women, all of
the latter--with the exception of the woman who had opened the
door--being barely more than young girls.
[Illustration: Marie at the door]