CHAPTER II
A RUNNING BATTLE
The morning light shone dimly through a narrow, darkly shadowed window when Johnny awoke. To the reader it may seem strange that he had slept so soundly. To the habitual wanderer a cot, a hammock, or only a hard floor is made for sleep. The places, a jungle, an Arctic tundra, a shack in a city’s slums are all the same to him. He sleeps where he may and leaves trouble to the morrow. So it was with Johnny.
His first waking thought was of his newfound friend. As he sat up and stared about him, he realized that he was alone in the room. The cot close to his own was mussed up and empty. His strange friend was gone and his automatic had passed out with him.
“Queer.” Johnny’s hand went out for his trousers and his bill folder.
“All there,” he murmured. “Mighty queer, I’d say. I—”
His reflections were broken off by the squeak of a door hinge. The outer door had been opened a crack. It was closed so quickly that he caught no glimpse of the intruder.
Springing out of bed, he hastily drew on his clothes, then went to the corner and bathed hands and face.
“Ah!” he breathed, “another day. And once more a city, my native city! My home! How good it is to live!”
He opened the door and stepped outside. What he saw amazed and puzzled him. The place in which he had spent the night was a plain board shack of but one room, built at the back of a lot. Before it, separated from it by some ten feet of boardwalk, was a second low, wood structure. This building was three times as large as the other, but was, if anything, in a worse state of repair.
These shacks had evidently been built before the street was laid, for their eaves were about on a level with the street walk.