is 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 class roved aimlessly over the country as their
fancy, the wanderlust, 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 passengers had
gone to sleep upon the coach seats, and Joe thought himself unobserved,
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 passing 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
wanderlust, the sneaking rogue who "toted" a six-shooter for the s