“Twenty miles!” Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He had to walk every foot of it, for they had turned him out of jail without a penny in his pockets.

Yet, when he once got started, and his blood had warmed with walking, he forgot everything in the fever of his thoughts. All the dreadful imaginations that had haunted him in his cell now rushed into his mind at once. The agony was almost over⁠—he was going to find out; and he clenched his hands in his pockets as he strode, following his flying desire, almost at a run. Ona⁠—the baby⁠—the family⁠—the house⁠—he would know the truth about them all! And he was coming to the rescue⁠—he was free again! His hands were his own, and he could help them, he could do battle for them against the world.

For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began to look about him. He seemed to be leaving the city altogether. The street was turning into a country road, leading out to the westward; there were snow-covered fields on either side of him. Soon he met a farmer driving a two-horse wagon loaded with straw, and he stopped him.

“Is this the way to the stockyards?” he asked.