Sobered by the solemnity of the moment the penitent wretch straightened and then gave a brief review of his life.  It was the oft-repeated story of a runaway boy, hailing from a good family, drifting into hobo-companionship with all the rum, filth and crime that such association implies, and ended by telling that on this day, after having so wantonly wasted the best years of his life, he had made up his mind to end it all by placing his head upon the rails.  On his way to the railway yards he had stopped to listen to the service of the Salvation Army, and when he heard their leader plead for lost souls, especially those who had been rejected by every other denomination, he felt it to be an act of God that had caused him to stop, and he came forward to try and make a second and better start in life.

When he finished his pitiful story of a blasted life, there was hardly a dry eye amongst the listeners, and taking advantage of the good impression the confession had made, the Salvation Army leader asked all those who were believers in Christ to offer up a silent prayer for the penitent sinner.

Joe joined the many others who complied with this request, and holding his cap before him, he bent his head in prayer.  Then a strange incident occurred, for just as he replaced his cap the same repentant wretch for whose regeneration he had just prayed, came towards him and while tears rolled down his seamed face he stretched forth his hands and pleaded, “James McDonald, unfathomable are the ways of the merciful God, for here at the moment when I had resolved to henceforth lead a clean life he has sent you so I could beg your pardon for the greatest wrong a human being could inflict upon a harmless boy, that is, to wantonly spoil his future.  James McDonald, I recognized your white hair streak when you lowered your head to pray for the salvation of the very man whom you had far better reason to curse.  Will you not now forgive me, whom you have known as Kansas Shorty, and who will seek in the morning the first honest job he has ever done in his whole life?” Joe, dumfounded at meeting the fellow whom, although aged and disfigured by the unnatural life he had been leading, he now recognized as the tramp for whom he had searched for so many years, held his peace, for he recalled how he had at Chicago spoiled by undue haste his chance to discover the fate of his missing brother, who had resembled him so much that Kansas Shorty for a second time made the same error in their identity.

[Illustration:  A drunken, shaggy bearded and poorly dressed man pushed himself through the crowd, which listened to the Salvation Army’s leader plea for penitents to come forward.]

He told the wretch that he forgave him, and then drew back and became lost in the crowd, but while he stood well out of Kansas Shorty’s view, he never took his eyes off the form of the new recruit of that immense army of human wrecks which the Salvationists have dragged out of saloons, gutters, penal institutions and back from suicide to convert and transform them into useful members of society.