Repeated encounters between police, an apparently drunk man, and those inside various businesses yesterday led to the man being arrested. Wilkesboro police were called yesterday to the area of River Street and U-S 421 to check out an intoxicated person. Before they could arrive, they were told by dispatchers someone had reported the man laying in the wooded area between the highway ramp and the overpass. When officers initially spoke with William Ruth, he was cooperative, though he had a number of beer cans about him and was clutching a 40-ounce beer as they talked with him. Not having anything to hold him on, the officers told Ruth, who is homeless, he needed to stay there until he sobered up, or he might be hit by a car. They'd barely got back in their cruisers before he took off across the highway and went into an adjacent business to bum money. After running him out of the business, officers again left, only to be called back a little while later when Ruth turned up at another business begging. This time, though, he was reported as being disruptive, not just an inconvenience, and an officer and a sheriff's deputy both saw him littering. At that point, they had something to detain him on, and when they ran a background check, they found Ruth was wanted on a failure to appear warrant out of High Point. He was jailed on that charge in lieu of a 500-dollar secured bond.