"You don't understan', kid"; and he stamped his foot. "I mean like yer mother. Listenin'? Well, 'll you promise?"
The kid nodded his head, but there was a surprise in his eyes which he could not conceal.
The train was at last ready, and we had to be quick.
"Well, Cig, so long; take care o' yerself. Be good to the kid."
Then he turned to the boy. It was the tenderest good-by I have ever seen between a prushun and his jocker. A kiss, a gentle stroke on his shoulder, and he helped him climb into the box-car.
The last we saw of Red, as we stood at the door while the engine puffed slowly out of the yards, he was standing on a pile of ties waving his hat. Six months afterward I was told in the Bowery that he was dead.
The journey to the Horn was full of incident. For six long days and nights we railroaded and railroaded, sometimes on the trucks and the blind baggage, and again lying flat on top, dodging the cinders as they whizzed about our heads, and the brakeman as he came skipping over the cars to tax us for the ride. It was hard work, and dangerous, too, at times, but the kid never whimpered. Once he wanted to, I thought, when a conductor kicked him off the caboose; but he faked a professional little laugh in place of it. And he also looked rather frightened one night when he nearly lost his grip climbing up the ladder of a cattle-car, but he was afterward so ashamed that it was almost pitiful. He was the "nerviest" child I ever traveled with. Even on the trucks, where old natives sometimes feel squeamish, he disguised his fear. But he was at his best at meal-time. Regularly he would plant himself before me in waiter fashion, and say:
"Well, Cig'rette, what's it to be? Beefsteak 'n' 'taters 'n' a little pie—'ll that do?"
Or if he thought I was not having enough variety he would suggest a more delicate dish.
"How'll a piece o' chicken taste, eh?" And the least eagerness on my part sent him off to find it.