At last came the hat, the one hat in Sacramento for me.  I knew it was a winner as soon as I looked at it.  I glanced at Bob.  He sent a sweeping look-about for police, then nodded his head.  I lifted the hat from the Chinaman’s head and pulled it down on my own.  It was a perfect fit.  Then I started.  I heard Bob crying out, and I caught a glimpse of him blocking the irate Mongolian and tripping him up.  I ran on.  I turned up the next corner, and around the next.  This street was not so crowded as K, and I walked along in quietude, catching my breath and congratulating myself upon my hat and my get-away.

And then, suddenly, around the corner at my back, came the bare-headed Chinaman.  With him were a couple more Chinamen, and at their heels were half a dozen men and boys.  I sprinted to the next corner, crossed the street, and rounded the following corner.  I decided that I had surely played him out, and I dropped into a walk again.  But around the corner at my heels came that persistent Mongolian.  It was the old story of the hare and the tortoise.  He could not run so fast as I, but he stayed with it, plodding along at a shambling and deceptive trot, and wasting much good breath in noisy imprecations.  He called all Sacramento to witness the dishonor that had been done him, and a goodly portion of Sacramento heard and flocked at his heels.  And I ran on like the hare, and ever that persistent Mongolian, with the increasing rabble, overhauled me.  But finally, when a policeman had joined his following, I let out all my links.  I twisted and turned, and I swear I ran at least twenty blocks on the straight away.  And I never saw that Chinaman again.  The hat was a dandy, a brand-new Stetson, just out of the shop, and it was the envy of the whole push.  Furthermore, it was the symbol that I had delivered the goods.  I wore it for over a year.

Road-kids are nice little chaps—­when you get them alone and they are telling you “how it happened”; but take my word for it, watch out for them when they run in pack.  Then they are wolves, and like wolves they are capable of dragging down the strongest man.  At such times they are not cowardly.  They will fling themselves upon a man and hold on with every ounce of strength in their wiry bodies, till he is thrown and helpless.  More than once have I seen them do it, and I know whereof I speak.  Their motive is usually robbery.  And watch out for the “strong arm.”  Every kid in the push I travelled with was expert at it.  Even French Kid mastered it before he lost his legs.

I have strong upon me now a vision of what I once saw in “The Willows.”  The Willows was a clump of trees in a waste piece of land near the railway depot and not more than five minutes walk from the heart of Sacramento.  It is night-time and the scene is illumined by the thin light of stars.  I see a husky laborer in the midst of a pack of road-kids.  He is infuriated and cursing them, not a bit afraid,