Ricky and Krause had silently agreed on following the train tracks southwards after hearing the shout of the pig on the edge of town. Of course, they stuck to the trees and hedges to not make themselves extremely conspicuous. After maybe a half an hour, they began to feel much warmer, and soon enough, the snow receded into patches of slush underneath pine trees and the sun shone through the clouds. After following the tracks around a gentle hill, they suddenly found themselves looking at what was, very plainly, a small hobo camp near a worn-out station platform. To the non-hobo’s eye, it was an unsightly clutter of four battered tents, a campfire and a half a dozen train-jumping bums laughing amongst themselves. That was the twins’ exact impression.

"Hey, y’all!" a hobo wearing a tattered, wide-brimmed hat called, "We got some visitors!"

The whole camp quieted down and turned to face Ricky and Krause. Ricky suddenly remembered all the things Flint had told him about hobos from his experiences of his adventuring days. He had told him that their numbers had dwindled in their area significantly due to the fact that hobos jump on trains, and bullet trains are very hard to jump on. He also remembered that they were the friendlier of homeless folk and usually worked for their food and helped others while they traveled, but Flint also said he had some troubles with the few that took up such things as banditry and kidnapping.

"They’re hobos," Ricky whispered to his brother, "Be ready for anything."

A wizened old hobo sitting close to the campfire stood up and walked over towards the twins with a hand out and a grin that exposed all nine of his teeth.

"Kids…my name’s Grandpa Billy. Welcome to my humble hobo camp! Now what can I call you two?"

"I’m Krause, and he’s Ricky."

"Well hello then, Krause and Ricky!" he shook each of their hands vigorously and chuckled to himself, "Come over by the fire, you two look like you could use some warmth and food."

They hesitantly followed the man across the railroad tracks and into the camp. The other hobos introduced themselves with names like Flatbed Jimmy and One-eyed Sam, despite the fact that he had both of his eyes.

"Say, are you another one of them pilgrims?" Grandpa Billy asked after a series of cheerful introductions and very strong handshakes.

"Pilgrims?" Ricky said.

"Oh…well, we’re from Northern Eagleland and we’re headed southwards towards Threed to find work at the new farms. There have been some people lately who’re traveling by foot towards some cave over yonder forests. After some screwball said there’s something magical about it, those crazy no-bos’re making pilgrimages there. Not that they’ll return, of course, them forests are filled with wolves, bears and who-knows-what-else this time of year. Oh sorry? Were you gonna say something?"

"Um…this cave…what do you know about it?"

"This no-bo said he found some sort of spring there, only it burned like fire and ran out of the top of some rock." he laughed, "Crazy, crazy…So where’re you from?"

"Look, I’m sorry, but if I were you, I’d pack up and leave really soon," said Ricky, "Do you know about the town of Snowman?"

"Yes…we were there last night…what about it now?"

"There’s a good chance that it’s burnt into charcoal as we speak."

"It’s true," added Krause, "And the guys who’re burning it are personally after us…um…Ricky? Should I tell ‘em anything else?"

There was a brief, melodramatic silence that fell on the camp that was broken only by the crackling of the fire. Then the hobo called Elliot the Eagle spoke out.

"This sounds like a real hole-in-the-boot…I’m thinking they’re not lying at all…"

"We’ve gotta do something!" One-eyed Sam said.

"Like what?" Oil-can Oliver interjected, taking a puff on his cigarette, "What if they’re no-good lying no-bo boys? And if they’re telling the truth, who’s gonna believe some cotton-ball story from the likes of us?"

It seemed as if the camp had suddenly forgotten about the twins as they began arguing amongst themselves about the ordeal. Grandpa Billy, who had been silent, drew a knife from his coat and struck the ground. For some reason, this quieted the little crowd very quickly.

"When we agreed to be a brotherhood of hobos, we agreed to help folks whenever they needed it and…a few other things. Get my drift? We’re setting off southwards in ten minutes, and we’re warning the first people we see. In the meantime, get these kids something to wear besides what they’re wearing now."

In a matter of minutes, Ricky and Krause were wearing tattered old coats that reeked of a hobo. That is, they smelled like cigarettes, caked dirt, oil and a faint wood scent. The hobos invited the twins to come along with them, but Ricky told them that they were traveling another direction. After some dispute, the twins ended up receiving "excess goods" from the already materialistically lacking hobos before being sent on their way. The hobos somehow packed everything up and began their long journey on foot to the closest human settlement.

"Not bad for our first day back into the real world, eh, Ricky?" Krause said as they began to travel down the path. Ricky just gave him a funny look.

"Well, I mean ain’t it something that in a whole afternoon we met a scientist, totally trashed his invention, sparked an attack on an innocent town, became bearers of ill omen and hobo friends. And now we’re heading out into a forest filled with dangerous animals just to get to one of those crazy sanctuaries."

Ricky stopped. "If you want to go back and follow those dirty hobos and probably be caught by pigs, you can do that."

"Geez! No offense meant…"

With that, they continued on their way. The forest quickly grew dense with tall evergreens and began to slope upwards. For being an evergreen forest, they trudged through lots of rugged underbrush and climbed over many outcroppings of rock. As the sun slowly progressed across the northern sky, the forest’s shadows became ever longer and the air became chilly. Krause stopped their trek countless times, claiming to have heard something moving nearby or have seen a shadow lurking nearby. Soon enough, the twins experienced their first night in the Dark Woods.

Everything seemed to be going wrong from the very start. Clouds rolled in after the sun set and it began to sleet. The twins stumbled about for maybe an hour, trying to keep under the pines to avoid the sleet if possible. Finally, they reached a shallow stone overhang on a rocky hillside. Even then, neither Ricky nor Krause could start a fire and they ended up wasting nearly half of the matches supplied by the hobos. So they ate their dinners in a cold, miserable silence and fell asleep nearly instantly despite the hard ground.

Krause awoke with a groan the next morning. His back felt harder than the rock he slept on and there was a low, soupy fog around their overhang. Worse, however, was the fact that neither Ricky nor his gear was in sight.

"Ricky?"

The silence continued.

"Okay, where are you now?" he said irritably, "We’ve gotta get going and it’s not funny that you’re playing on my fears."

Krause only heard the cawing of a crow as a response. He groaned again, climbed to his feet and grabbed his pack. He was beginning to feel very nervous. Ricky may be sarcastic and had grown slightly cynical about their adventure, but Krause usually played all the lowbrow pranks. After a brief internal argument, he grabbed his frying pan and began his search for his brother. The ground was hard and rocky and the sleet still covered the ground, so tracking seemed out of the question. He slowly made his way up the slope, calling out his brother’s name frequently with no success. Soon there were the scattered calls of birds and the rustling of things in the underbrush, and Krause was feeling even more discomforted. He called his brother’s name one last time and the response froze his blood. He had seen enough movies to know that the howling close behind him belonged to a wolf. Krause broke into his best dash up the slope, blinded beyond twenty feet due to the fog.

"Ricky! Ricky!" he shouted as he ran, but his voice soon failed him. He later learned that it was because he was at a much higher altitude than he was used to, but that doesn’t have much to do with the action scene. Krause dodged around some trees and scrambled over a boulder, but still the feral baying of the wolves came ever closer. The slope soon gave way to a flat field dotted with fewer trees than before, but a jagged cliff rose from the side of it. A quick estimation of the wolves’ barks gave Krause about a hundred feet of distance between them. With most of his remaining strength, he flat-out sprinted across the field towards the cliffs. With any luck, he reckoned that he could either scale them or find a place to hide. Finally, Krause made it to the edge of a largish boulder when he felt something grab him by the leg and pull him down to the grass with a yelp. He looked up and saw Ricky, who dragged him behind the boulder.

"Ricky!" Krause snapped, "You about scared the crap out of me!"

Ricky put his finger to his mouth and peered around the edge of the boulder. The little pack of wolves appeared in the thinning fog at the edge of the field, stopped and began to sniff. Then they barked at each other for a moment until the one that was apparently the alpha male growled loudly and barked a few times. The other four immediately began following their noses.

"What’re doing now?" Krause whispered very softly.

Ricky pointed to a crevice in the cliff-face and began crawling towards it. To Krause it was little more than a crack, but Ricky had somehow crawled through it. He followed nervously and after an uncomfortable few seconds, he found himself in a small cave lit by a hole in the ceiling. Ricky was against a wall, breathing heavily.

"Can we talk now?" Krause asked.

"Just try not to wake the dead," said Ricky with a grin, "First off, I figured I’d trip you and give you a hand back there because you’ve saved my skin so many times, I figured I’d try to return the favor."

"You totally scared the crap outta’ me, bro. Don’t do that again. And where the heck were you? It also scared the crap outta’ me when I woke up and you were gone…but thanks."

"You’re welcome and sorry about that. Yesterday I knew we were being watched by something, I just lied because didn’t wanna scare you too badly. So I got up real early and scouted ahead to see what we were up against. At the top of this cliff is another cave - "

"You left me all alone?" Krause interrupted, "And you knew there was something goin’ on?"

Ricky sighed. "You never get up early, and besides, if we were gonna be attacked in our sleep, I figured they’d already have done so and we’re taking a risk by just being here. But this cave; I think it’s where we’re looking for."

Ricky went on to describe how he got close enough to see that trees, shrubs and boulders hid the cave entrance and how the cave opened into a concrete hallway. There were no visible guards, but he didn’t want to take any chances either. He was starting to head back when suddenly a bear hiding in a shrubbery took him by surprise. He was able to somehow escape and fall into the cave they were sitting in. Either the bear gave up or reported back to whomever was obviously controlling the animals. Krause related to his story and they both realized how fortunate they were.

"I hope our luck keeps up," Ricky said grimly, "If we’re gonna get through that cave alive, we’re gonna need lots of it."

After a quick snack, the twins made use of a dead vine growing down the hole and climbed out. Ricky led the way through the trees to where he remembered the cave being. It was a slow process. They crept around rocks and hid behind trees, looking around before moving somewhere to make sure nothing was watching them while trying not to make too much noise. Finally, Ricky nodded and pointed to a cluster of trees on an incline. They crawled on their bellies and reached it. The cave opened more into the ground than the side of the slope, but it looked like they could manage walking down it.

"I guess I’m going first," Krause said.