"Don't try to steal from me!" Rost shouted. He pulled out a small gas gun and discharged it under Ollie's nose. Ollie pitched forward onto his face, twitched, moaned, and lay still.
The deputy sheriff held an ampoule under his nose and brought him to after setting the squad car on the beamway, proceeding under remote control toward the county seat.
The first thing Ollie thought of was his day's pay. He'd never received it. Worse—his bedroll was left behind. And there was no stopping nor turning on the beam way.
He complained bitterly.
"You won't need that stuff," the sharp young deputy said. "Not where you're going."
"I suppose Rost needs it!" Ollie protested.
"He might at that. All he's got is those measily four rented acres of tomatoes. The cannery pays him the same as if he had four hundred acres and could pick by machine.
"About all the profit he can make is what he chisels out of his pickers. You'll be better off in a Home, Pop, than trying to work cheaper than a machine."
"Those Homes are prisons!"