After walking a ways, Jurgis met a little ragamuffin whom he hailed: “Hey, sonny!”

The boy cocked one eye at him⁠—he knew that Jurgis was a “jail bird” by his shaven head. “Wot yer want?” he queried.

“How do you go to the stockyards?” Jurgis demanded.

“I don’t go,” replied the boy.

Jurgis hesitated a moment, nonplussed. Then he said, “I mean which is the way?”

“Why don’t yer say so then?” was the response, and the boy pointed to the northwest, across the tracks. “That way.”

“How far is it?” Jurgis asked.

“I dunno” said the other. “Mebby twenty miles or so.”