Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. AS REGARDS HOBOES. The train pulled out without us and we regarded her ruefully. "Billy, what's the next thing on the programme. We're ditched," said I. "I suppose all we can do is to wait for the next train, but I hate to be seen around this place for some of the Chinamen might get on to us." "Oh, don't you worry about that. Them fellers won't hurt a white man in this country. If we were in their own country they might do something to us, for they're pretty numerous there. You stay here while I go up to the depot and ask the agent when the next train will come along." Billy walked off into the brush with our blankets, whilst I leisurely walked up to the depot to buzz the agent. The agent was a slim young man with a thin face, black moustache and active manner. He was sitting in his office all alone as I entered, telegraphing. I asked him, when he got through telegraphing, if he would please tell me when the next train was due. He sized me up, and probably judged from the cut of my jib that I was a Wandering Willie. "Freight or passenger?" asked he, in rather a bantering way. "Freight," replied I, in a kind of half-hearted manner. "Don't know, pardner. There may be something going down the hill about two or three o'clock tomorrow morning." "Whew," said I to myself; "that's a long time to wait." I thanked the agent and left the office. "Billy, I guess we're in for it," remarked I to my chum after I had rejoined him. "There'll be no train until some time tomorrow morning. It'll be a long wait." "How about grub; are we going to starve?" "Looks like it, kid. We're both broke and I guess we don't want to go to that Chinese village for more grub, do we?" "Well, hardly," responded Billy. Luckily we had plenty of tobacco with us, so ...