Then a strange dream came to him.  He dreamed he was a prisoner locked up in a narrow cell, and that he saw Slippery, the yegg’s face pressed against its cross-barred steel door, while on both sides of him stood officers of the law.  They were leading him to the gallows, upon which he had been condemned to expiate his crime, and now on his way to face his doom he had stopped to bid Joe a last farewell, and Joe could distinctly hear his words:  “Good-bye, Joe, do not do as I did, who when a youngster ran away from a good home to follow Bums, Booze and Boxcars, but go back to your waiting mother before it is too late, for remember, ’The Wages of Sin is Shameful Death’.”

[Illustration:  Hanging from the gallows]

CHAPTER XII.

“Scattered to the Winds.”

The sun stood high in the heavens when Joe awakened, and it was some moments before he remembered the horrible occurrences of the preceding night.  But most vividly of all he remembered the solemn promise he had made to his dying pal and to strengthen himself in his resolve to strictly live up to his pledge, he fell upon his knees and repeated the solemn oath.

At a rippling brook he washed and removed every trace of the ordeal he had passed through, and then inquired from a farmer the direction to the railroad station at Dixon, where he intended to hop a train to Chicago and, arriving in the city, find a job so he could support himself honestly, while keeping on a lookout for his missing brother Jim.

After an hour’s walk he arrived at the railroad station and found a crowd surging about a baggage truck which stood upon the station platform, and when he managed to push his way through the throng he found that the people were staring at a blood soaked blanket that covered a carcass of some sort.  Joe only stopped for a moment, for when one of the men, more curious than the others, lifted up a corner of the blanket, Joe gazed into the lifeless features of Slippery, the yegg, and forced by his emotions he retreated quickly to another part of the platform.

Here he overheard some of the citizens discussing the post office robbery, and he heard them say that the railroad and city policemen had identified the dead robber as one of the most dangerous criminals in the land for whose apprehension “dead or alive”, the government offered a large reward.  He also heard that the same country store post office had been dynamited twice in the past three months, and that the postmaster had set a trap with the aid of his neighbors, to give the next gang of burgling yeggs a hot reception.

Presently a loud shout was heard and the crowd made a rush to the front of the station.  Joe followed and saw a dirt covered man, securely manacled to an officer, entering the waiting room.  Joe instantly recognized Boston Frank, and heard that he had been caught by a farmer’s posse, who, following a trail of blood that had dripped from the buggy, had surprised Boston Frank while he was busy at work burying the satchels containing the burglar tools.