"How does it happen you are out of work?"

"I was thrown out by the Kansas City strike and have been unable to
find a place since."

"Is he looking for work too?" with a glance that made his customer's
face flush, and a nod toward the fellow from Arkansas, who sat on a
box near the stove rapidly making away with more than his half of the
breakfast.

The other shrugged his shoulders, "We woke up in the same straw-stack
this morning and he was hungry, that's all."

"Well," returned the store-keeper, as he dropped the lid of the cracker
box with a bang, "You'll not be bothered with him long if you are
really hunting a job."

"You put me on the track of a job and I'll show you whether I mean
business or not," was the quick reply. To which the grocer made answer
as he turned to his task of dusting the shelves: "There's lots of work
in Boyd City and lots of men to do it."

The stranger had walked but a little way down the street when a voice
close behind him said, "I'm erbliged ter ye for the feed, pard; reckon
I'll shove erlong now."

He stopped and the other continued: "Don't much like the looks of this
yer' place no how, an' a feller w'at jes' come by, he said as how thar
war heaps o' work in Jonesville, forty miles below. Reckon I'll shove
erlong. Aint got the price of er drink hev' ye? Can't ye set 'em up