Part 8 (1/2)
Joe took his kind landlady's advice, and while walking about the streets he felt that the pangs of remorse for the prank which had deprived him of his good mother were less severe, and when he began to feel more like his former self he retraced his steps to his lodging house.
When he reached South Clark Street, his progress was blocked by a jam of vehicle traffic. The ever increasing crowd of delayed people forced Joe into the vestibule of one of the many slum saloons abounding in that locality, and here he watched the mounted police hard at work trying to again open the thoroughfare. While he thus pa.s.sed the time until he could cross the street, he was accosted by a typical Chicago rum-soaked b.u.m. ”Say, friend,” the semi-maudlin wretch pleaded while he edged most uncomfortably close to Joe, ”would you mind a.s.sisting a hungry fellow who has not eaten a square meal in a week?” More for the sake of getting rid of his unpleasant company, than from a desire to accord charity, Joe went into his trouser pockets for a small coin to hand to the beggar, but while fumbling for the money he caused his trainman's cap to fall to the pavement. He reached down and picked it up, and when he straightened himself he pulled out a dime and handed it to the beggar, who, instead of accepting the proffered donation, disdainfully pushed aside the hand holding the alms and stepping closer he almost insultingly leered into Joe's face. ”Say, McDonald,” he hissed, ”when did you make your getaway?” Before the astonished Joe could utter a single word the tramp pointed at Joe's trainman's cap and added: ”I see you are working now for the Chicago & North-Western Railroad,” and when still no sign of recognition came from Joe's mouth he in a most threatening manner finished: ”Do they know your record over there?”
Joe, although he trembled with ill-suppressed rage at this street beggar's impudence to openly insult him in such barefaced manner, held his peace for the moment, as he tried in vain to fathom how and where the mendicant had learned to call him by his correct name. To wring this information from the sodden wretch was his first purpose. ”Say, fellow,”
Joe almost pleasantly asked the beggar, ”who told you that my name is McDonald?” ”Did you think I did not recognize you?” replied the b.u.m in a most insolent tone while at the same time he pointed his hand at Joe's birthmark. ”When you bent forward to pick up your cap I remembered you the moment I put my eyes on that streak of white hair,” and then, sure that he had before him a victim whom he could blackmail with perfect impunity, he inquired, ”Have you been back to Rugby since I saw you the last time, and say, McDonald, how are the chances for your helping a poor friend to the price of a meal and a bunking place for the night?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Say, friend,” pleaded the semi-maudlin beggar, ”would you mind a.s.sisting a hungry fellow who has not eaten a square meal in a week?”]
Joe felt greatly relieved when he heard the fellow's more familiar talk, as it seemed to prove that the beggar had been one of his late father's section laborers, and he searched his pockets once more and pulled out a silver dollar and pressed the coin into the man's outstretched palm, and then, wondering why he did not even deign to thank him for this generous gift he inquired if he had lately been back to Rugby, and if he ever heard what had become of his mother, Mrs. McDonald. Instead of an answer to his question the beggar straightened himself to his full height, ”So you have not been home?” the b.u.m mocked in a most impudent manner, ”a little scared to show up amongst the folks at home with that soiled record chalked behind their honest family name, eh?” As yet no reply came from the trainman's trembling lips, still under the impression that he was speaking to Joe's twin brother, the b.u.m added, while a most diabolical grin spread over his ugly visage, ”Haven't peddled needle cases lately, have you?” ”I do not understand what you are referring to,” the now thoroughly mystified Joe interrupted the beggar, ”I have never peddled a needle case in all my life.” ”Trying to wiggle yourself out of your past, eh?” the vagrant scornfully retorted, and thinking that his victim was trying to slip out of his net, he continued, ”guess you think you can fool this old plinger and try to work the 'innocent'
game on your old jocker, eh?”
Joe again insisted that he did not understand what the fellow was trying to say, and tiring of the unpleasant conversation he blandly asked the beggar if he were not somewhat rum crazed. ”Call me rum crazed,” the wretch shrieked in towering rage, feeling that his victim was getting the better of the argument, that he intended should form a base upon which he would later collect blackmail, and while he shook his dirty fist in Joe's face, he added, ”I, crazy? How dare you call me crazy? I, Kansas Shorty, the plinger?” Then he stepped back a pace and while his hideous, rum-bloated face was made all the more repulsive by his malevolent eyes with which he glared at the shuddering Joe, who only now, that the fiend had revealed his name-de-road recalled and recognized in the person of the beggar, the tramp who had taken charge of his brother James.
While the rogue was yet gloating over the apparent discomfort his words had caused, Joe suddenly threw himself upon the vagabond, and while he bore him to the pavement and while his hands throttled the viper's throat, he shrieked into the beggar's ears. ”I am Joseph McDonald, and you die on this spot unless you tell me what you have done with my brother James.” They struggled desperately, one to free himself from the strangle hold, while Joe wished to force a confession from the fellow beneath him whose staring eyes were bulging out of his skull, and whose face had commenced to turn a bluish-black.
Quickly the usual city crowd gathered about the fighting men and a second later the slum saloon in front of which they were battling, emptied its filthy sc.u.m into the street, all anxious to enjoy the combat. Some of the plingers amongst this riff-raff must have recognized their mate, and thinking that the trouble was merely a case of a street beggar insulting a citizen, and noting that this one wore the hated uniform of a railroad man--every tough's sworn enemy--they made common cause and the next moment Joe saw a heavy beer bottle descending upon his head, then all was darkness.
When he regained consciousness he was lying upon the floor of the slum saloon, with his pockets turned inside out and his watch missing, and a dull pain almost bursting his skull. He staggered to his feet, and while he tried to steady himself against a table, the bartender took hold of his coat and shoved him through the swinging doors into the street, and advised him to make a quick getaway unless he wished to be arrested for attempting to murder a ”poor and harmless working man”.
For a week his conductor did not see Joe, who was, during every moment of this time, ceaselessly combing the slums, the dives, the police courts and even the ”jungles” upon the outskirts of the city in a vain effort to get a glimpse of Kansas Shorty.
To some of the fellows whom he recognized as having been members of the ”mob” which prevented his choking Kansas Shorty into a confession, he told the story of his missing brother and repeated the strange conversation that had pa.s.sed between them before he felled the scoundrel to the pavement. These plingers, knitted together by the common knowledge that of all human vultures they are the most despised, had only shrugs for the unfortunate man, and when one of them, tiring of his repeated pleadings, condescended to hand him a mite of consolation, all the information he cared to impart was contained in the rejoinder that ”Kansas Shorty had jumped the city.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Unconscious in the gutter]
CHAPTER XIV.
”The n.o.ble Work of the Salvation Army.”
A most decided change had come over Joseph McDonald when he again reported himself ready for duty. Since his struggle with Kansas Shorty he had repeatedly weighed every word this rascal had spoken and adduced from it that something most dishonorable must have been Jim's fate, and the oftener he attempted to unravel the mystery that lay concealed behind the ill-omened remarks made by this scoundrel, the more morose he became from the constant strain, for his troubled conscience caused him to feel that he was equally to be blamed for any disgrace that might have overtaken his missing brother.
The more he worried the more he became resolved that even should he never be able to see his brother again, the chances that he would some day run across Kansas Shorty were far more favorable, as he well knew how drifters of his cla.s.s roved aimlessly over the country as their fancy, the wanderl.u.s.t, and more often the police drove them onward.
To find Kansas Shorty became an obsession with Joe. If luck favored him in his search, he planned to plead with the scoundrel, but should this prove of no avail, then he intended to strangle him until he would divulge the secret which shrouded Jim's fate.
Oftentimes, especially when late in the night, after the pa.s.sengers had gone to sleep upon the coach seats, and Joe thought himself un.o.bserved, his fellow trainmen, to whom he had confided his life's story, watched Joe, to whom a troubled conscience refused peace, raise his hands before him and slowly close the fingers with such suggestive motions, that it caused the trainmen to shudder when they imagined the same fingers executing like motions while entwined about Kansas Shorty's throat.
Joe's second hobby was to study the hobo monickers written upon or carved into the railroad company's property. From the time his train left the Chicago Terminal until it pulled into the Union Station at Omaha, where Joe's ”trip” ended, he employed every spare moment while they stopped at stations or water tanks, to carefully read every hobo sign that the drifters pa.s.sing to and fro over the line had left behind them, ever hoping to discover a clue to Kansas Shorty's whereabouts by finding his name-de-rail with a date and an arrow beneath it pointing in the direction he was traveling.
Joe's third and favorite hobby was to hunt hoboes who dared to beat their way upon his train. He finely discriminated between the man in search of employment, the harmless tramp who had fallen a victim to the wanderl.u.s.t, the sneaking rogue who ”toted” a six-shooter for the special purpose of killing human beings, preferring railroad employees and hoboes, and the rascal who had trained other people's sons to beg a living for him, exactly as an Italian organ grinder would train a performing monkey or bear. Many were the railroad lanterns Joe had to replace for those he broke over the heads of the two latter cla.s.ses of tramps, especially the last ones, who clung even more obstinately to their road kids than a tiger clings to his prey. The youngsters he had rescued, if he was not able to send them safely home, he would turn over to proper authorities, for well he knew that each one of these runaway boys had not only somewhere a broken-hearted mother waiting for his return, but that, if they were not stopped drifting to the abyss while still young, with the evil training that depraved tramps gave them, it would be merely a matter of time before they too would have learned to destroy and pilfer railroad property; rob box cars and stations, and thus repay with almost brutal ingrat.i.tude those who had permitted them to travel unmolested upon their trains.
The years rolled quickly by and although Joe had now been in the company's employ for almost fifteen years, he refused every offer of promotion, preferring his humble trainman's job, that, although he had years ago given up all hope of ever seeing his brother James again, gave him a chance to atone for his own blighted past by his self-appointed mission, that of trying to combat single-handed and una.s.sisted the most vitally important and yet most revolting phase of the whole tramp problem. His endeavor in this line caused much ridicule among his fellow railroad men and those who had stopped to listen to tramps and especially to plingers, whom Joe's unselfish work had deprived of victims and who denounced him as a ”Stool Pigeon”, as a ”Spotter” and whatever other venomous attribute their black souls could hurl at him, in an attempt to damage his well earned reputation as a benefactor to humanity, who in spite of many threats of bodily injury, by pointing to the seriousness of the road kid evil, proved to the world its intimate connection with the never lessening, nay, ever increasing, numbers of thieving and murdering vagrants.
At both ends of his ”run”, at Chicago, as well as at Omaha, Joe had a rest of twelve hours before he again had to report for duty. One evening, just after he arrived at Omaha, his attention was attracted by a band of the Salvation Army holding a public service on a street corner. Their leader was loudly extorting and pleading with the crowd listening to his service, for penitents to come forward and permit the band to pray for their salvation. He was a good orator, and to hear him the better, Joe pushed his way through the crowd until he stood at the curb.
Just at the moment when some of his audience commenced to t.i.tter at the poor success the appeal seemed to have, forcing his way through the crowd came a half drunken, s.h.a.ggy bearded and poorly dressed man, who, when he reached the open center of the meeting, pleaded with the Salvation Army's leader to pray for him. Undaunted by the fellow's rough appearance and the very evident marks of his craving for strong drink, the leader shook his hand and after he bade him welcome asked him as a primary step towards complete salvation to make a public confession of his sins.