"Well, things went on from bad to worse, and finally, when I was fourteen, I run away. I stole rides on freight cars when I could, and when I couldn't do that, I tramped, till I got to St. Louis, and got a place there in a third-class hotel as bell boy. While I was there, I picked up a good many little accomplishments that have stuck to me ever since, gambling and swearing, and so on. I got to be pretty tough, I know, but in spite of it all, there was one good spot about me yet,--I thought the world of my mother. I staid in St. Louis two years; in that time I had only heard from mother twice, but she sent me money both times, and wrote me kind letters, though she never said anything about my coming to see her." By this time, they had reached the main road, and as Morgan seated himself on a rock to finish his story, Houston followed his example. "I made up my mind I wanted to see her, so I took what little money I had saved up, about eighty dollars, and started for Denver. The last letter I had from mother, she said she was running a house on a certain street, and I supposed of course it was a boarding house. I won't tell you her real name; Morgan wasn't her name, nor mine neither, I took it afterwards, but I'll call her name Johnson. I got to Denver, and happened to meet an old acquaintance of mine named Tim, who took me to a fifth-class boarding and lodging house where he was staying. Tim had only been in Denver a few days, and knew very little of the city, but we found a crowd of old-timers at the house, and after a while I asked for Mrs. Johnson who kept a boarding house on such a street. The men all laughed and began to guy me; I got hot and was going to sail into them, but Tim persuaded me to go out with him, and we started in to paint the town. "Well, we'd been out about two or three hours, when we came to a dancing hall, the toughest we'd seen,--a regular dive,--and we went in, bound to have some fun. The place was full of tough-looking subs, and a lot of frouzy, dowdy girls, and what they lacked in good looks they made up in paint and brass,--such brazen faces I never saw. Half way down the hall was a big, fat woman, with her hair blondined, who seemed to have charge of the place, and was giving orders to the man behind the bar. They had some loud talk, and something in her voice took my attention, and I looked at her; just then she turned 'round facing me, and great God! it was my mother! I knew her in spite of the blond hair and the paint, and she knew me. She gave one awful shriek, and then fell in a dead faint, and when she came to half an hour after, she went into hysterics, and screamed and raved and cried nearly all night.