"The Wages of Sin is Death."
"Look here, friends," remarked one of the men seated at the table, who
was dressed in the height of fashion, and later proved to be the leader
of the others, after he had greeted Slippery and had for a brief moment
gazed at Joe, "Slippery has brought a road kid along with him, no doubt
intending to imitate the ways of the accursed plingers and add another
tramp to those who already hobo about the country." Slippery, to whom
this tart rebuke was addressed, now explained that the lad by his side
was his "pal", and not his road kid; this explanation seemed to satisfy
the speaker for he stretched out his hand and greeted Joe in a most
cordial manner, while Slippery introduced him to the party, not by his
honest Christian name, but by his road name, "Dakota Joe". But the next
moment a far greater surprise was in store for the boy when Slippery
commenced to introduce him to the well attired gentlemen and richly
gowned ladies, whom he supposed, judging by their general appearance,
were far removed from the level they had chosen for themselves, for
presently Slippery announced the name of the "gentleman" with whom he
had just shaken hands as "Bunko Bill", and Joe's unpleasant suspicions
that he had been led into a nest of human vipers were greatly increased
when his pal called off the names of the other inmates of the flat. The
nearest fellow was "Brooklyn Danny, the Dip"; the next one went by the
name of "Buffalo Johnny, the Strong Arm Man"; the fourth responded to
"Ohio Jack, the Sneak"; a neat looking fellow who sported a diamond stud
upon his shirt bosom answered to the appropriate name of "Diamond Al";
while the criminal tendencies of the sixth were plainly stamped in his
nickname, "Niagara Swifty, the Shop Lifter", while the last one, a
red-haired, wary-looking chap answered to the rather suggestive name of
"Atlanta Jerry, the Hold-Up."
Joe, who had heard at home the section men tell about the "monicker"
every tramp bore, could not help but note that these "names-de-crime"
which Slippery had just now given as the ones with which these gentlemen
addressed each other, so very closely resembled those used by the hoboes
that perhaps every one of the men before him had formerly been a road
kid.
The boy's astonishment was greatly increased when next Slippery
introduced the "ladies". The one who so cautiously opened the door for
their entrance was honored by the name of "Dippy Marie"; the second on
account of the color of her hair was known as "Red Annie"; while a third
was titled "Noisy Jane", and the last, the youngest and best looking one
of them, went by the nickname of "Babe".
After this introduction Bunko Bill invited Slippery and Joe to make
their home with them during their sojourn in Chicago, which offer was
readily accepted and then all sat down to dine. After dinner Slippery
under the pretense of wishing to show Joe the city, managed to keep out
of complications which might have been caused by some of the inmates too
closely questioning the lad, and he took the boy for a walk to the
nearby shores of Lake Michigan.
After Joe had enjoyed for some time the beauty of the marine scenery
that spread like a gigantic panorama before his eyes, he broke the
silence by bluntly asking Slippery how and when they were to meet his
brother Jim. Slippery assured Joe and quieted him by saying that it
would be merely a matter of days before they would meet Jim in the
street in the same manner that they had met Boston Frank.
They returned to the flat in time to join the others at supper, and
after this had been served Joe wondered why one after another, all the
members of the gang cautiously slipped out of the door and vanished down
the stairway with the sole exception of "Dippy Marie", who showed them
to their bedroom.
In the morning Boston Frank made a call at the flat, and behind locked
doors had a long conference with Slippery and the others. After his
visit Slippery became a busy man and Joe watched him oiling, filing and
tempering a collection of jimmies, nippers, wedges, pliers, saws, and
other such tools for which an expert mechanic could find a proper use.
When Joe carelessly picked up a small bottle that stood upon the table
before Slippery, the yegg's face turned pale, and then he explained to
the boy who too commenced to shudder the longer he listened, that the
harmless looking liquid in the bottle was fearfully dangerous
nitro-glycerine.
The following afternoon Boston Frank made a second visit and then he and
Slippery, each carrying a heavy satchel filled with the tools Slippery
had so carefully looked after, followed by Joe, around whose left leg
they had bandaged, despite his most vehement protests, the small bottle
containing the deadly explosive, left the flat. They took a street car
to the railroad station, where Boston Frank purchased tickets to Dixon,
one of the prettiest and most hustling cities in western Illinois. Soon
they were rolling out of the railroad yards and across the fertile
plains and arrived at their destination late in the night.
They left the train from the rear platform of the last Pullman, and
climbed to the ground from the opposite side of the station platform,
and after they had hurriedly walked about a mile in the darkness, Boston
Frank stopped at a barn, and while Slippery and Joe walked ahead, he
noiselessly opened the barn door and after hitching the owner's fastest
horse to his best buggy he leisurely overtook the others and made them
climb in, after they had placed the heavy satchels in the buggy's body,
and then he carefully drove the horse on into the night.
During their conversation, which Joe overheard, Boston Frank mentioned
to Slippery that the "P.-O." had been reported to be a regular mint, and
he repeatedly assured him that no one was sleeping in the "P.-O." as he
had tried several nights in succession to purchase tobacco at the
"P.-O.", but his knocks were not answered.
At a cross-roads country store they stopped and here Joe understood what
Boston Frank had meant with "P.-O.", as it bore a large sign that had
the words "Post Office" painted upon it.
While Boston Frank hitched the horse and buggy to a nearby tree,
Slippery carried the heavy satchels containing the tools to the rear of
the store, while he ordered Joe to carefully unwrap the nitro-glycerine
bottle from his leg, which the boy gladly did to be rid of the dangerous
explosive, and then handed it to Slippery.
Joe, who had not yet the least inkling what sort of mysterious night
work was contemplated by his older companions, suddenly came to the
realization of his own danger when Slippery in a decidedly unfriendly
manner, roughly commanded him to stand guard in front of the store, and
after he had placed the lad so he could scan the different roads, he did
something that has made more blood thirsty desperadoes out of harmless
boys than any other trick, he pressed a cocked, large calibered revolver
into the unsuspecting boy's hand and curtly ordered him, under pain of
losing his own life if he failed to obey this order, to blaze away at
any approaching human being. Then he disappeared towards the rear of the
building.
For a moment Joe's brain worked overtime, especially when he looked at
the murder tool the other fellow had placed into his trembling hand and
he promptly decided to cast the pistol into the middle of the roadway
and run for his life to escape not only the clutches of these fellows,
whom he now realized were desperate robbers, but to escape a possibly
far worse fate. Just as he started to follow out this idea, Slippery
stepped around the corner, and after he once more warned the lad not to
falter in shooting to kill, he gave Joe a spool of fine copper wire to
hold and when the surprised boy wished to know the reason, he showed Joe
where he had the other end of the same wire twisted about his wrist,
and cautioned him to hold it taut and that every time he gave the wire a
sharp pull the boy should answer with the same signal, and that if he
saw anyone approaching several sharp pulls should be the danger signal.
Then he again left the lad, and whenever he tugged on the wire Joe
answered with the agreed signal, and by this simple means Slippery had
not only forced a harmless boy to do dangerous outpost duty, and was
assured that he was always on guard, but what was most important, he had
a noiseless danger signal that, even should the boy fail to kill
somebody, he would thus notify the robbers that all was not well and
give them plenty of time and a far better chance to make their getaway
than the boy himself had, especially if he "shot to kill", as he had
been commanded to do, which would have meant a long term behind the
prison bars if not a trip by the route of the hangman's rope.
While Joe had thus been forced to become their involuntary accomplice,
the two yeggs pried open the rear entrance of the store, and then
Slippery worked at his profession of safe blowing. When all had been
made ready to explode the charge, they carried the satchels with their
tools out of the store and placed them in the buggy and made everything
ready for an instant escape. Boston Frank unhitched the horse and held
it by the head, while Slippery went back to the store, lit the fuse and
then stood at the rear door until an explosion, which seemed to tear the
store asunder told the waiting yeggs that the moment to commence their
dangerous harvest had arrived. While Boston Frank had trouble to quiet
the madly plunging, frightened horse, Slippery dove into the store to
emerge again an instant later choking, sneezing and almost blinded just
as if he had dynamited a box loaded with powdered red pepper instead of
a common fireproof safe. Foiled in stealing the contents of the safe,
amid awful curses, he climbed into the buggy and called to Joe to jump
upon its rear, and while they heard all around them loud calls and even
pistol shots of the farmers, who had been aroused out of their
slumbers, Boston Frank turned into the highway leading back to Dixon and
the race for their liberty commenced.
They dashed down the wagon road at top speed, Boston Frank ever urging
the horse on to greater efforts, as in speed lay their only salvation.
Passing the first farm house which fronted upon the wagon road, they
could see by the light cast by a lantern that stood beside him upon the
porch, a man dressed in his night robe raise a revolver and after taking
a careful aim at the approaching buggy, just as they were in line with
him, discharge point blank in quick succession its six messengers of
death into their midst. But Boston Frank did not slacken the pace, on
the contrary he urged the horse to ever greater speed.
Not a word was exchanged by the inmates of the buggy during this race,
and for several miles farther they drove at the utmost speed, then the
horse's terrific gait commenced to slacken, and now that they were
beyond the aroused neighborhood, Boston Frank slowed the horse and
turned in at a road crossing to throw possible pursuers upon a wrong
trail.
Just as they realized how close an escape they had, Slippery keeled over
against Boston Frank and said hoarsely: "Frank, for mercy's sake take me
where I can get a drink of water. The fellow who fired at us from the
first farm house hit his mark, for I am shot." "Slippery, old boy," now
queried Boston Frank, not believing that such a dire calamity had
overtaken them, "you are joking, aren't you?" And then, when Slippery
did not answer, he looked into his pal's face and saw there the pallor
of death while two dark lines emerging from the corner of his mouth
caused by the wounded man's life blood, trickling away, proved to him
that his comrade in crime had only too accurately spoken the bitter
truth. Now he coughed and when Boston Frank saw a stream of blood shoot
out of the wounded man's mouth and heard a choking noise in his throat,
he readily recognized the nature of the hurt and that Slippery had been
shot through his lungs.
Boston Frank in sheer desperation again urged the rapidly tiring horse
to one last effort, but soon the best speed he could get out of the
animal was a slow trot. Again Slippery most piteously begged for a drink
of water, and taking a desperate chance, when he saw in the darkness an
open gate that led into a field, he guided the tired horse into it, and
after Joe had closed the gate behind them he drove ahead until a thick
thorn hedge stopped further progress. Here they lifted the wounded man
out of the buggy and laid him upon the ground. He continued to plead
most piteously for a cooling drink of water to appease his torturing
fever thirst. "Joe," cautioned Boston Frank, after he had securely tied
the horse to the hedge, "you take care of poor Slippery until I return
with my derby filled with water, as I cannot bear to listen longer to
the poor fellow's heart-rending appeals." Then he disappeared into the
night, resolved to find water at any price.
"Joe, Joe, come here, Joe," the lad heard Slippery weakly calling a
moment later, and he knelt beside the wounded man and asked him what he
desired. Just then Slippery could not answer, as he was again vomiting
blood, and Joe tried to ease his breathing by elevating his head with
boughs he broke from the hedge.
"Joe," the wounded fellow called again, "where are you, Joe?" The boy
placed his hand in the outstretched, searching hands of Slippery, who
feebly pressed them with his own and said, "Joe, I know I am mortally
wounded, and want you to make me, a dying man, a promise. I meant to
forsake crime and live the life of an honest man for your sake after we
had successfully pulled off this job--my last one." He paused a moment
and then continued, "I took you with us, so when you and I went to your
home in Rugby you would never forget that you had been my accomplice
and would not be apt to peach on me. I know that the wound I received
is the just punishment for the greatest wrong mortal man can commit,
that of leading a harmless boy astray." Again he paused, as if his
troubled conscience overpowered him, and then with a renewed effort that
heavily taxed his fast ebbing vitality, he added, "Joe, for the love you
bear for your mother, of whom you have spoken so often, swear now,
before the Almighty, that you will from this moment forward shun the
three evils which have brought me to this, and which are 'Bums, Booze
and Boxcars', and that you will not further associate with the criminals
at the flat, for if you return to them, on account of this night's work
you will be forever one of their number." And there in the solitude of
the night, kneeling beside his dying companion, with his arms uplifted
towards the starry firmament, Joe solemnly swore that he would beware of
"Bums, Booze and Boxcars", and quit the very people whose acquaintance
he had made through Slippery.
[Illustration: And there in the solitude of the night, kneeling beside
his dying companion, Joe solemnly swore to forever forsake the "Road."]
For a moment all was silence, which was interrupted only by the gurgling
of the blood as it welled up into the mortally wounded yegg's throat,
then came the pitifully human appeal from the lips of the dying man,
"Joe, where are you, Joe? Do not leave me alone, Joe, now that all have
left me and everything is so dark before my eyes." Then after a brief
pause he painfully stammered, "Joe, find your brother Jim, then both of
you go back to your mother and be once more her boys." He again became
silent and then, now that it was too late, he plainly showed, that
although he was a despised yegg, there was one place in this wide world
where there would be one true friend waiting in vain for his return, for
he slowly added, "Joe, believe me, there is no friend like mother and no
place like home."
Then came another hemorrhage and a stream of his life blood shot into
the air and then, with a last effort, he drew Joe's hands to his
parched, suffering lips, and while he covered them with kisses, the
rattling in his throat increased, then decreased, and finally
stopped--he had expired.
When Boston Frank returned with the water, he only found his dead pal,
as Joe, horror stricken by the dead man's glassy stare, by the blood
covered corpse, by the quietude of the night and all the horrors which
had transpired, had fled into the night as if furies and demons were
pursuing him, bent only upon placing as much space as possible between
his living self and the gruesome tragedy he had left behind. He climbed
over fences and forced his way through hedges; forded creeks and swam
streams, until from his frantic exertions he became so completely
exhausted that when he fell into a clump of bushes he was unable to
rise, and gradually sank into a deep sleep.
Then a strange dream came to him. He dreamed he was a prisoner locked up
in a narrow cell, and that he saw Slippery, the yegg's face pressed
against its cross-barred steel door, while on both sides of him stood
officers of the law. They were leading him to the gallows, upon which he
had been condemned to expiate his crime, and now on his way to face his
doom he had stopped to bid Joe a last farewell, and Joe could distinctly
hear his words: "Good-bye, Joe, do not do as I did, who when a youngster
ran away from a good home to follow Bums, Booze and Boxcars, but go back
to your waiting mother before it is too late, for remember, 'The Wages
of Sin is Shameful Death'."
[Illustration: Hanging from the gallows]