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"Say," I call up to him, "don't you play the hose on me any more."

"All right,” he answers, and goes back to his work.

I have made friends with the engine, but the shacks are still looking for me. At the next stop the shacks ride out all three blinds, and as before I let them go by and deck in the middle of the train. The crew is on its mettle by now, and the train stops. The shacks are going to ditch me or know the reason why. Three times the mighty overland stops for me at that station, and each time I elude the shacks and make the decks. But it is hopeless, for they have finally come to an understanding of the situation. I have taught them that they cannot guard the train from me. They must do something else.

And they do it. When the train stops that last time they take after me hot-footed. Ah, I see their game. They are trying to run me down. At first they herd me back toward the rear of the train. I know my peril. Once to the rear of the train, it will pull out with me left behind. I double, and twist, and turn, dodge through my pursuers and gain the front of the train. One shack still hangs on after me. All right, I'll give him the run of his life, for my wind is good. I run straight ahead along the track. It doesn't matter. If he chases me ten miles he'll nevertheless have to catch the train, and I can board her at any speed that he can.

So I run on, keeping just comfortably ahead of him and straining my eyes in the gloom for cattle-guards and switches that may bring me to grief. Alas! I strain my eyes too far ahead, and trip over something just under my feet, I know not what, some little thing, and go down to earth in a long, stumbling fall. The next moment I am on my feet. But the shack has me by the collar. I do not struggle. I am busy with breathing deeply and with sizing him up. He is narrow-shouldered, and I have at least thirty pounds the better of him in weight. Besides, he is just as tired as I am, and if he tries to slug me I'll teach him a few things.

But he doesn't try to slug me, and that problem is settled. Instead, he starts to lead me back toward the train, and another possible problem arises. I see the lanterns of the conductor and the other shack. We are approaching them. Not for nothing

have I made the acquaintance of the New York police. Not for nothing, in box-cars, by water-tanks, and in prison cells, have I listened to bloody tales of man-handling. What if these three men are about to man-handle me? Heaven knows I have given them provocation enough. I think quickly. We are drawing nearer and nearer to the other two train-men. I line up the stomach and the jaw of my captor, and plan the right and left I'll give him at the first sign of trouble.

Pshaw! I know another trick I'd like to work on him, and I almost regret that I did not do it at the moment I was captured. I could make him sick. What of his clutch on my collar? His fingers, tight-gripping, are buried inside my collar. My coat is tightly buttoned. Did you ever see a tourniquet? Well, this is one. All I have to do is to duck my head under his arm and begin to twist. I must twist rapidly-very rapidly. I know how to do it, twisting in a violent, jerky way, ducking my head under his arm with each revolution. Before he knows it those detaining fingers of his will be detained. He will be unable to withdraw them. It is a powerful leverage. Twenty seconds after I have started revolving the blood will be bursting out of his finger-ends, the delicate tendons will be rupturing, and all the muscles and nerves will be mashing and crushing together in a shrieking mass. Try it some time when somebody has you by the collar. But be quick-quick as lightning. Also, be sure to hug yourself while you are revolving-hug your face with your left arm and your abdomen with your right. You see, the other fellow might try to stop you with a punch from his free arm. It would be a good idea, too, to revolve away from that free arm rather than toward it. A punch going is never so bad as a punch coming.

The

That shack will never know how near he was to being made very, very sick. All that saves him is that it is not in their plan to man-handle me. When we draw near enough he calls out that he has me, and they signal the train to come on. engine passes us, and the three blinds. After that, the conductor and the other shack swing aboard. But still my captor holds on I see the plan. He is going to hold me until the rear of the train goes by. Then he will hop on, and I shall be left behind-ditched.

to me.

But the train has pulled out fast, the engineer trying to make up for lost time. Also, it is a long train: It is going very lively, and I know the shack is measuring its speed with apprehension.

"Think you can make it?" I

query innocently.

I

He releases my collar, makes a quick run, and swings aboard. A number of coaches are yet to pass by. He knows it, and remains on the steps, his head poked out and watching me. In that moment my next move comes to me. I'll take the last platform. I know she's going faster and faster, but I'll only get a roll in the dirt if I fail, and the optimism of youth is mine. do not give myself away. I stand with a dejected droop of shoulder, advertising that I have abandoned hope. But at the same time I am feeling with my feet the good gravel. It is perfect footing. Also I am watching the poked-out head of the shack. I see it withdrawn. He is confident that the train is going too fast for me ever to make it.

And the train is going fast-faster than any train I have ever tackled. As the last coach comes by I sprint in the same direction with it. It is a swift, short sprint. I cannot hope to equal the speed of the train, but I can reduce the difference of our speed to the minimum, and hence reduce the shock of impact when I leap on board. In the fleeting instant of darkness I do not see the iron hand-rail of the last platform; nor is there time for me to locate it. I reach for where I think it ought to be, and at the same instant my feet leave the ground. It is all in the toss. The next moment I may be rolling in the gravel with broken ribs, or arms, or head. But my fingers grip the hand-hold, there is a jerk on my arms that slightly pivots my body, and my feet land on the steps with sharp violence.

I sit down, feeling very proud of myself. In all my hoboing it is the best bit of train-jumping I have done. I know that late at night one is always good for several stations on the last platform, but I do not care to trust myself at the rear of the train. At the first stop I run forward on the off-side of the train, pass the Pullmans, and duck under and take a rod under a day-coach. At the next stop I run forward again and take another rod.

I am now comparatively safe. The shacks think I am

ditched. But the long day and the strenuous night are beginning to tell on me. Also, it is not so windy nor cold underneath, and I begin to doze. This will never do. Sleep on the rods spells death, so I crawl out at a station and go forward to the second blind. Here I can lie down and sleep; and here I do sleep-how long I do not know, for I am awakened by a lantern thrust into my face. The two shacks are staring at me. I scramble up on the defensive, wondering as to which one is going to make the first "pass" at me. But slugging is far from their minds.

"I thought you was ditched," says the shack who had held me by the collar.

"If you hadn't let go of me when you did, you'd have been ditched along with me," I answer.

"How's that?" he asks.

"I'd have gone into a clinch with you, that's all," is my reply.

They hold a consultation, and their verdict is summed up in: "Well, I guess you can ride, Bo. There's no use trying to keep you off."

L

And they go away and leave me in peace to the end of their division.

J. LONDON.

UNIVERSAL TRAINING FOR SERVICE

IN AUSTRALIA

UNIVERSAL training for military service in Australia, legally enforced in 1909, was inevitable after 1903, when in taking over the administration of the defences, the first Commonwealth Government provided in its Defence Act for the levying of the whole male population for service in case of war. That provision was evidence of the wholesome and natural view taken by Australians of the citizen's duty to his nation. It was also evidence of an ignorance of, or a blindness to, the conditions of modern campaigning. Raw levies, if equipped with courage and hardihood, could be of almost immediate usefulness in the warfare of a century ago. To-day they would be worse than useless, a burden on the commissariat, no support in the field. The Australian mind, hereditarily logical, and with a political promptness that must look, from this end of the world, rather atavistic, was quick to recognise this. It is thus not incorrect to say that the Act of 1903 made the Act of 1909 inevitable. That is not intended to minimise in any way the patriotic work of Colonel Campbell, Mr. W. M. Hughes, M.P., Mr. J. C. Watson, M.P., and others who worked in the cause of Universal Service. But it is only possible to explain the rapid victory of the League-within less than five years it had achieved success-by presuming that the people were already prepared to recognise that it was each citizen's duty to help to defend his country; and that, admitting a universal duty to serve, a necessary sequence was universal training for service. The real work of the National Service League in Australia was not to convince the people, but to bully the politicians into giving effect to the wishes of the people. To have done that in so short a space of time was an admirable achievement.

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