This may seem strange, but it’s a fact. The underworld beggars are the most reliable and trustworthy, the most self-sacrificing and the quickest to help of any class of people outside the pale of society. Crippled, wounded thieves, fugitives and escaping prisoners, if they know what they are about, always turn to the beggars for aid and are never refused. They are sheltered in the beggar’s humble flop, his small “plunge” (money he begs) is divided with them, and he carries messages any distance to their friends and relatives. The beggar minds his own business, settles his own feuds, and I cannot recall ever seeing one of them in court testifying against anybody for anything.

This convention at Pocatello ended in a most unusual way. Nobody was killed, none of them fell in the fire. There was no fighting. When their pennies were all slopped up, and the food eaten, the bums folded their tents and stole silently away to their different activities.

Sanc and Johnnie borrowed money from Mary and we went back to Ogden, where they prepared for their journey, horseback, after our coin.