"'Walk,' she replied.
"And two days later they started."
The outsider paused and lighted a forbidding-looking pipe.
When he resumed his narrative he spoke in a lower tone. The recollections
that he called up seemed to stir him within, although he was calm enough of
exterior.
"I won't describe the experience of my pal on that trip. It was his first
tramp. He knew nothing of the art of vagabondage. Of course they had to
beg. That was tough, although he got used to it and to many tricks in the
trade. They slept in barns and they ate when and where they could. It
cut him to the heart to see his wife in such hunger and fatigue. But her
spirits kept up better than his--or at least they seemed to. Often he
repented of having started upon such a trip. But he kept that to himself.
"When the wife did at last give in to the cold, the hunger, and the
weariness, it was to collapse all at once. It happened in the mountain
country. In the evening of a cold, dull day they were trudging along on
the railroad ties, keeping on the west-bound track so they could face
approaching trains and get off the track in time to avoid being run down.
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