It was noon when the two sauntered into Kansas City.  Billy had a dollar in his pocket—­a whole dollar.  He had earned it assisting an automobilist out of a ditch.

“We’ll have a swell feed,” he had confided to Bridge, “an’ sleep in a bed just to learn how much nicer it is sleepin’ out under the black sky and the shiny little stars.”

“You’re a profligate, Billy,” said Bridge.

“I dunno what that means,” said Billy; “but if it’s something I shouldn’t be I probably am.”

The two went to a rooming-house of which Bridge knew, where they could get a clean room with a double bed for fifty cents.  It was rather a high price to pay, of course, but Bridge was more or less fastidious, and he admitted to Billy that he’d rather sleep in the clean dirt of the roadside than in the breed of dirt one finds in an unclean bed.

At the end of the hall was a washroom, and toward this Bridge made his way, after removing his coat and throwing it across the foot of the bed.  After he had left the room Billy chanced to notice a folded bit of newspaper on the floor beneath Bridge’s coat.  He picked it up to lay it on the little table which answered the purpose of a dresser when a single word caught his attention.  It was a name:  Schneider.

Billy unfolded the clipping and as his eyes took in the heading a strange expression entered them—­a hard, cold gleam such as had not touched them since the day that he abandoned the deputy sheriff in the woods midway between Chicago and Joliet.

This is what Billy read: 

Billy Byrne, sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet penitentiary for the murder of Schneider, the old West Side saloon keeper, hurled himself from the train that was bearing him to Joliet yesterday, dragging with him the deputy sheriff to whom he was handcuffed.

The deputy was found a few hours later bound and gagged, lying in the woods along the Santa Fe, not far from Lemont.  He was uninjured.  He says that Byrne got a good start, and doubtless took advantage of it to return to Chicago, where a man of his stamp could find more numerous and safer retreats than elsewhere.

There was much more—­a detailed account of the crime for the commission of which Billy had been sentenced, a full and complete description of Billy, a record of his long years of transgression, and, at last, the mention of a five-hundred-dollar reward that the authorities had offered for information that would lead to his arrest.

When Billy had concluded the reading he refolded the paper and placed it in a pocket of the coat hanging upon the foot of the bed.  A moment later Bridge entered the room.  Billy caught himself looking often at his companion, and always there came to his mind the termination of the article he had found in Bridge’s pocket—­the mention of the five-hundred-dollar reward.

“Five hundred dollars,” thought Billy, “is a lot o’ coin.  I just wonder now,” and he let his eyes wander to his companion as though he might read upon his face the purpose which lay in the man’s heart.  “He don’t look it; but five hundred dollars is a lot o’ coin—­fer a bo, and wotinell did he have that article hid in his clothes fer?  That’s wot I’d like to know.  I guess it’s up to me to blow.”