food, he spread his wings and sailed away. Out 
a mile or so from town was the city’s dumping 
place. Here for several acres the low ground 
had been filled in with ashes, tin cans, papers, 
boxes, garbage, and other waste matter, which 
was carted from the town every day. A few 
buzzards were sitting around on the dump and 
some colored boys and one or two men were 
wandering around scratching in the various 
piles of refuse for old hats, worn-out shoes, 
broken umbrellas, or other things of value to 
them. Bill picked around in a garbage pile for 
a time, finding a few meat rinds and other things 
to eat. 
It so happened that among the human scaven- 
gers at the ash heaps was a poor, long-legged 
young white man known locally as “Silly Sim.” 
To be quite plain, he did not have good sense. 
He was a harmless kind of fellow, and nobody . 
paid any special attention to him, except some 
of the ruder men or boys who sometimes teased 
him, 
On one occasion when ne was trying to con- 
vince a company of boys that he was General 
1 be) 
