Publishing Company

_Erie, Pa., U.S.A._

An Introductory.

CHAPTER I.

"The Harvester."

"It is my turn tonight to relate for your entertainment a story of my
past, and I shall repeat to you the most pathetic happening that I have
ever experienced in all my life. I have never been able to eradicate its
details from my memory, as I witnessed its beginning with my own eyes,
and its ending, many years later, was told to me by one of the principal
participants."

"I shall not repeat to you one of the same, old, time-worn tales of how
slick hoboes beat trains, nor fabled romance concerning harmless
wanderlusters, nor jokes at the expense of the poor but honest man in
search of legitimate employment, but I shall relate to you a rarely
strange story that will stir your hearts to their innermost depths and
will cause you to shudder at the villainy of certain human beings, who,
like vultures seeking carrion, hunt for other people's sons with the
intention of turning them into tramps, beggars, drunkards and
criminals--into despised outcasts."

The man who spoke was a typical old-time harvester, who was known
amongst his acquaintances as "Canada Joe", and the men for whose
entertainment he offered to tell this story had, like himself, worked
from dawn until nearly dark in the blazing sun and the choking dust of
the harvest field, gathering the bounteous wheat crop of one of South
Dakota's "Bonanza" farms, and who, now that their day's toil had been
accomplished and their suppers partaken of, were lounging upon the
velvety lawn in front of the ranch foreman's residence, and while the
silvery stars were peacefully twinkling in the heavens overhead, they
were repeating stories of their checkered lives, which only too often
brought back memories of those long-ago days, before they too had joined
the flotsam of that class of the "underworld", who, too proud to degrade
themselves to the level of outright vagrancy while yet there was a
chance to exchange long and weary hours of the hardest kind of labor for
the right to earn an honorable existence, were nevertheless, included by
critical society in that large clan of homeless drifters--"The Tramps".

[Illustration: This evening it was Canada Joe's turn to tell a story.]

* * * * *

And this evening it was for "Canada Joe" to tell a story.

[Illustration: a farm scene]

CHAPTER II.

"The Samaritans."

Many years have pa