No police officer who knows his business would think of looking in a Pullman sleeper or diner for a fugitive hop fiend yegg with a twenty-five-year sentence hanging on him.
Arriving safely at Vancouver, I took stock and found myself sick, weighing one hundred and ten pounds, with a ferocious hop habit, about ten dollars, and a big pistol—the gatherings of forty years.
Then came a foggy night. Necessity and Opportunity met, and I went away with a bundle of bank notes and some certified checks. The checks went into the first mail box as an apology from Necessity to Opportunity.
Then began the toughest battle of my life. Opium, the Judas of drugs, that kisses and betrays, had a good grip on me, and I prepared to break it. The last words of my rescuer when he put me in the train rang in my ears:
“Good-by and good luck, Blacky. And you’d better lay away from that hop or it’ll make a bum of you.”
CHAPTER XXIV
I had money enough to last some little time, long enough to get my strength back, perhaps. I paid the landlady a month’s rent and told her I was a sick man and would be in my room all the time and not to disturb me.
In this way I hoped to account for never stirring out of doors, which I did not dare do. I certainly was a sick man, and looked it.
This landlady was very good-hearted, and, sympathizing with my illness, she did not leave me alone two hours in succession. She sent a Chinese boy every hour or two to see how I felt, and in the morning she would send in coffee and toast and come in herself to inquire how I was.
After the boy had made the bed in the morning, she must come in to see if he had turned the mattress and shaken up the pillows for me. She was so busy helping me out that she nearly landed me back in jail.