Panting, they stopped at the run-down frame building on the corner of Forty-ninth and Praha; a man was sitting on the wooden steps in front of the sagging gray rooming house. He was a big almost-handsome blond man in a red and black plaid shirt and gray pants, clothing that was not at all fancy, but neither did it have the frayed, ill-fitting look of what the two boys were wearing. The man seemed to Jimmy to be almost as pale as the headless, thingless corpse.

"Where's the fire, fellas?" the man asked pleasantly; his teeth were very white in a wide smile; his light blue eyes seemed to smile, too.

"There's a guy down there," Jimmy said.

"And he doesn't have no thing," Petey said.

"Really," the man said. He rose, smiled, stretched, as if awaking from a nap. "Well, why don't I call somebody for you, then?"

"Would you, mister?" Jimmy asked. He looked toward the ramshackle house. "They got a phone in there?"

"Sure," the man said. He patted the boy on the shoulder. "I'll call the railroad dicks."

Petey winced at the word "dicks."

"Now," the man said, smiling back at them as he climbed the rickety steps, "why don't you go on back and stand guard, till help comes?"

Jimmy looked at Petey.

Petey looked at Jimmy.

"Do we got to, mister?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes," the man said. He smiled like something was funny, but his voice was somber: "It's your civic duty."

And the boys went back to the Run. They stood at the edge of Jackass Hill, looking mutely toward the black socks extending from the brown bushes.

Hardly fifteen minutes had gone by when two railroad detectives arrived, and within half an hour sirens announced the arrival of Cleveland city cops-several uniformed men and a pair of detectives.

The uniformed men stayed up at the top of the incline, keeping sightseers away. The pair of detectives descended; neither man wore a topcoat, but it was cold enough for their breaths to smoke.