Jimmie thrust the bundle into Boogies’ arms and valiantly led a desperate way to the North River.  Boogies panted under his burden as they dodged impatient taxicabs.  So they came into the maze of dock traffic by way of Desbrosses Street.  The eyes of both were lit by adventure.  Jimmie pushed through the crowd on the wharf to a ticket office.  A glimpse through a door of the huge shed had given him inspiration.  No common ferryboats for them!  He had seen the stately river steamer, Robert Fulton, gay with flags and bunting, awaiting the throng of excursionists.  He recklessly bought tickets.  So far, so good.  A momentous start had been made.

At this very interesting point in his discourse to me, however, Boogies began to miss explosions too frequently.  From the disorderly jumble of his narrative to this moment I believe I have brought something like the truth; I have caused the widely scattered parts to cohere.  After this I could make little of his maunderings.

They were on the crowded boat and the boat steamed up the Hudson River; and they disembarked at a thriving Western town—­which, I gather, was Yonkers—­because Boogies feared his stepmother might trace him to this boat, and because Jimmie Time became convinced that detectives were on his track, wanting him for the embezzlement of a worn but still practicable uniform of the Western Union Telegraph Company.  So it was agreed that they should take to the trackless forest, where there are ways of throwing one’s pursuers off the scent; where they would travel by night, guided by the stars, and lay up by day, subsisting on spring water and a little pemmican—­source undisclosed.  They were not going to be taken alive—­that was understood.

They hurried through the streets of this thriving Western town, ultimately boarding an electric car—­with a shrewd eye out for the hellhounds of the law; and the car took them to the beginning of the frontier, where they found the trackless forest.  They reached the depths of this forest after climbing a stone wall; and Jimmie Time said the West looked good to him and that he could already smell the “b’ar steaks br’iling.”

Plain enough still, perhaps; but immediately it seemed that a princess had for some time been sharing this great adventure.  She was a beautiful golden-haired princess, though quite small, and had flowers in her hair and put some in the cap of Jimmie Time—­behind the nickel badge—­and said she would make him her court dwarf or jester or knight, or something; only the scout who was with her said this was rather silly and that they had better be getting home or they knew very well what would happen to them.  But when they got lost Jimmie Time looked at this scout’s rifle and said it was a first-class rifle, and would knock an Indian or a wild animal silly.