A simple-faced chap, but one who knew the game from A to Z, played the deaf and dumb game, for which purpose his jocker had forced him to learn the sign language.  Another boy had been taught to throw his hand and fingers so far “out of joint” that a real crippled-for-life paralytic could not have improved upon the deceptive deformity.  Both of these lads used duckets, pencils, shoestrings and thimbles as an addition to their mute appeals, although it is a well-known fact that no genuinely afflicted paralytics or mutes, least of all boys, ever resort to begging for their living.

In the evening after supper had been served and things had somewhat quieted down in the rooms, almost dumfounded by surprise Jim watched Snippy’s jocker paint a strong solution of lye into the dreadful sore—­known in the hobo vernacular as a “jigger”—­upon the road kid’s arm.  The poor little lad shrieked with pain as the acid ate into his quivering flesh, which deepened the wound still more and gave it a “fresh” look, which greatly added to its horrid repulsiveness so as to all the more arouse the pity of those from whom he would be forced to beg on the coming morning.

[Illustration:  After supper Jim watched a hobo paint acid into the dreadful sore upon Snippy’s arm and heard the little lad shriek with pain when the fluid ate into his quivering flesh.]

Joe made careful inquiries of one of the friends he had made among the road kids, and this boy told him that oftentimes these inhuman monsters continued the lye treatment for such a length of time and so fearfully corroded their helpless victim’s limbs, that blood-poisoning set in and made amputations necessary to save their lives.  The deeply seared, white scars which these “jiggers” leave during the balance of the road kids’ natural lives, prove to those who are versed in the ways of the road, in which school of crime a criminal branded with these tell-tale scars received his first lesson.

Just before Jim went to rest for the night upon one of the bare wooden benches that had been given to him for his bed, Kansas Shorty warned him that if he ever said a single word of what had occurred since he left Minneapolis, or would occur in the future, he would not only murder him but would ramble to Rugby and tell his mother that her son had robbed a house, and then he pulled out his notebook and repeated to Jim his correct name and address, which the boy had in his innocence given him at the Golden Rule Hotel.

The poor lad first shuddered with terror as he thought how his poor mother would suffer should she be informed how he had disgraced her, then he snuggled close to the black-souled fiend and solemnly promised never to divulge a single word to any mortal.

The following morning Kansas Shorty gave Jim a package of needle cases and in words that Jim could not misunderstand ordered him not to come “home” until every one had been peddled.

Luck was with him.  His rosy cheeks and his neat appearance opened the hearts and loosened the purse strings of charitable ladies and it was just ten o’clock when he returned to the hangout, having sold all of his stock.