“Feed them first, Mike.”
We followed our leader into the dining room and all sat at one big table where we had a substantial breakfast. When the last bum had his fill, we marched back to the barroom and lined up against the wall again.
“All ready, judge,” said Mike.
The judge stopped dealing drinks and pronounced sentence. His voice sounded tired, weary; there was a note of kindness in it.
“Oh, well, Mike, lave the big bums take tin days, and the little bums five.”
He turned to his work. The big bum now led us out and to a near-by box car that served as a calaboose. One side door was nailed up and both end doors fastened outside. We crawled in and the other side door was shut and padlocked on the outside.
Smiler sat down in the car and laughed. “What’s next, I wonder, kid?”
Some one answered out of the darkness: “They’ll hook this box car on to the first freight and haul us over to Martinez, the county seat, an’ slough us in the county jail.”
I had told Smiler about cutting myself out of the car when my companion was killed.
“Better get busy with your ‘shive,’ kid.” I started cutting on the side opposite the boarding house. The bum that pleaded guilty for all of us saw what I was doing and protested. “Hey, kid, lay off o’ that. You want to get us all six months, destroyin’ railroad property?”