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and moved away from the wall. "Yes, I'll help you. I couldn't have it on my conscience to send any man back there. Are you hungry?"
    "That ham smelt pretty good."
    She managed a ghost of a smile.
    "Wait here."
    She went to the door. I watched her. I couldn't be sure if I could trust her but there was nothing else I could do. If she called the cops then it was my bad luck.
    When she had gone, I prowled around the shed. She seemed to be gone a long time, then just as I was about to go to the house to see what she was doing, she came back, carrying a bucket of hot water, a towel, soap, a razor and a bundle of clothes.
    "I'll get you some food now."
    Ten minutes later she was back, carrying a tray. She had cooked me six eggs and four cuts of ham, and she had made me a pot of coffee.
    In that time I had shaved and washed and had got into the suit which I guessed was her brother's. It was a little tight, and it was shabby, but I didn't care. It was wonderful to be rid of that filthy prison uniform.
    I saw she was watching me curiously as I began to wolf down the food. She sat on a box near me.
    "How did you escape?" she asked. "I thought no one could get away from Farnworth."

    I told her the whole story. I told her how I had the money itch, how Roy and I had planned the robbery, how I had covered up for Roy. I told her about Farnworth and the dogs, and how I had got away.
    She listened, her eyes wide open. It did me good to tell her. It was the first time I had talked to anyone about it.
    "If I'm caught," I said, "they'll half kill me. They'll put me in a cell they keep for punishment. Three of the guards will come in with belts. They'll lam into me until they can't lam into me any more. Every day for a week, they'll do that. I've seen men come out of the punishment cell. One of them had lost an eye: another had a broken arm."
    She drew in a sharp breath of horror.
    "But I'm not going to be caught," I said. "I'd rather the than go back to Farnworth."
    By then I had finished the meal and was smoking a cigarette from the pack she had put on the tray. I felt pretty good.
    "You mustn't go to the railway," she said. "I can help you get to Oakland if that's where you want to go."
    "That's where I want to go. It'll be a jumping off place. How can you do it?"
    "In an hour, a truck calls here to pick up these cantaloups," she told me. "The trucker is a boy named Williams. He comes every day. He has a meal here. While he is eating, you can hide in the back of the truck. He goes to Oakland market. He leaves the truck in the market square while he collects the money. You could slip out then and you'd be in Oakland."
    That's how I got to Oakland. It turned out to be the easiest thing in the world.
    Before the trucker arrived, the girl gave me five dollars, all the money she had. She gave me two packs of cigarettes. She warned me I would only have a few hours start. When her brother returned and missed his clothes she would have to tell him she had given the clothes to me. I would have to get out of Oakland fast, but at least I had nothing to worry about until seven or eight that evening when her father and brother got back.
    I tried to thank her, but she didn't want my thanks. She said she couldn't send any man back to Farnworth and, anyway, she thought I had had a lot of bad luck.
    As the truck jolted off down tile dirt road, I peered out between the crates of cantaloups. She stood looking after the truck in her red and white cowboy shirt and her blue jeans. As the truck turned onto the highway, she raised her hand and waved.

    She made a picture I keep in mind; a picture that will stay with me for the rest of my days.
    II
    On the fifth day of my escape from Farnworth, I reached Little Creek, approximately a thousand miles from Oakland.
    Those thousand miles I had put between myself and Oakland had been pretty rugged going. I had been lucky to jump a freight train just outside Oakland, but after twenty hours, travelling through the desert