rd 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