The Return of the Mucker | Page 6

the
trussed deputy sheriff, and as Billy had no desire to be seen he slipped
over the edge of the embankment into a dry ditch, where he squatted
upon his haunches waiting for the train to depart. The stop out there in
the dark night was one of those mysterious stops which trains are prone
to make, unexplained and doubtless unexplainable by any other than a
higher intelligence which directs the movements of men and rolling
stock. There was no town, and not even a switch light. Presently two
staccato blasts broke from the engine's whistle, there was a progressive
jerking at coupling pins, which started up at the big locomotive and ran
rapidly down the length of the train, there was the squeaking of brake
shoes against wheels, and the train moved slowly forward again upon
its long journey toward the coast, gaining momentum moment by
moment until finally the way-car rolled rapidly past the hidden fugitive
and the freight rumbled away to be swallowed up in the darkness.
When it had gone Billy rose and climbed back upon the track, along
which he plodded in the wake of the departing train. Somewhere a road
would presently cut across the track, and along the road there would be
farmhouses or a village where food and drink might be found.
Billy was penniless, yet he had no doubt but that he should eat when he
had discovered food. He was thinking of this as he walked briskly
toward the west, and what he thought of induced a doubt in his mind as
to whether it was, after all, going to be so easy to steal food.
"Shaw!" he exclaimed, half aloud, "she wouldn't think it wrong for a
guy to swipe a little grub when he was starvin'. It ain't like I was goin'
to stick a guy up for his roll. Sure she wouldn't see nothin' wrong for
me to get something to eat. I ain't got no money. They took it all away
from me, an' I got a right to live--but, somehow, I hate to do it. I wisht
there was some other way. Gee, but she's made a sissy out o' me! Funny
how a feller can change. Why I almost like bein' a sissy," and Billy
Byrne grinned at the almost inconceivable idea.

Before Billy came to a road he saw a light down in a little depression at
one side of the track. It was not such a light as a lamp shining beyond a
window makes. It rose and fell, winking and flaring close to the
ground.
It looked much like a camp fire, and as Billy drew nearer he saw that
such it was, and he heard a voice, too. Billy approached more carefully.
He must be careful always to see before being seen. The little fire
burned upon the bank of a stream which the track bridged upon a
concrete arch.
Billy dropped once more from the right of way, and climbed a fence
into a thin wood. Through this he approached the camp fire with small
chance of being observed. As he neared it the voice resolved itself into
articulate words, and presently Billy leaned against a tree close behind
the speaker and listened.
There was but a single figure beside the small fire--that of a man
squatting upon his haunches roasting something above the flames. At
one edge of the fire was an empty tin can from which steam arose, and
an aroma that was now and again wafted to Billy's nostrils.
Coffee! My, how good it smelled. Billy's mouth watered. But the
voice--that interested Billy almost as much as the preparations for the
coming meal.
We'll dance a merry saraband from here to drowsy Samarcand. Along
the sea, across the land, the birds are flying South, And you, my sweet
Penelope, out there somewhere you wait for me, With buds, of roses in
your hair and kisses on your mouth.
The words took hold of Billy somewhere and made him forget his
hunger. Like a sweet incense which induces pleasant daydreams they
were wafted in upon him through the rich, mellow voice of the solitary
camper, and the lilt of the meter entered his blood.
But the voice. It was the voice of such as Billy Byrne always had
loathed and ridiculed until he had sat at the feet of Barbara Harding and

learned many things, including love. It was the voice of culture and
refinement. Billy strained his eyes through the darkness to have a closer
look at the man. The light of the camp fire fell upon frayed and bagging
clothes, and upon the back of a head covered by a shapeless, and
disreputable soft hat.
Obviously the man was a hobo. The coffee boiling in a discarded