"What's the matter?" I queried.
"'stoo cold out here. We have a nice, warm calaboose waitin' fer ye!"
Grunting and grumbling, we dropped to the cinders, one after the other. A posse of deputies and citizens, had, for some dark reason, rounded us up.
One or two made a break for it, and escaped, followed by a random shot. After that, no one else cared to be chased after by a bullet.
They conducted us to what they had termed "the calaboose," a big, ramshackle, one-roomed barn-like structure. Piled in so thick that we almost had to stand up, there were so many of us—we were held there till next morning.
But we were served, then, a good breakfast, at the town's expense. The owner of the restaurant was a queer little, grey-faced, stringy fellow. He fed us all the buckwheat cakes and sausages we could hold, and won every hobo's heart, by giving all the coffee we could drink ... we held our cups with our hands about them, grateful for the warmth.
"Say, you're all right, mister!" ventured a tramp to the proprietor, as he walked by.
"Bet your God-damned life I'm all right!... because I ain't nothin' but a bum myself ... yes, an' I'm not ashamed of it, neither ... before I struck this burg an' started this "ham-and" and made it pay, I was on the road same es all o' you!"
"Kin I have more pancakes, boss, an' another cup of coffee?"
"You sure can, bo!... es I was sayin', I'm a bum myself, an' proud of it ... and I think these here damn bulls (policemen ... who were sitting nearby, waiting for us to finish) have mighty little to 'tend to, roundin' up you boys, now the orange-pickin' season's over with, an' puttin' you away like this ... why, if any one of them was half as decent as one o' you bums—"