My companion and I were led in before, I think, a justice of the peace.  The latter was kindly-disposed toward me because I was young and looked delicate.

When I began my plea for clemency I appropriated the name, career, and antecedents of Simmons, the young soldier whose body-servant I had been, back in San Francisco.  The man on the bench was impressed by my story of coming of a wealthy family ... my father was a banker, no less.

The justice waved me aside.  He asked my buddy to show his hands.  As the callouses on the palms gave evidence of recent hard work, he was set free along with me.  We were the only two who were let off.  The rest were sent up for three months each, I am told....

And, after all that, what did my buddy do but up and steal my blanket roll, with all in it—­including my Caesar and Shakespeare—­and my extra soldier uniform—­the first chance he got!...

* * * * *

An American who had married a Mexican girl gave me work sawing and chopping wood.  I stayed with him long enough to earn a second-hand suit of clothes he owned, which was too small for him, but almost fitted me ... civilian clothes ... my soldier clothes were worn to tatters.

* * * * *

I picked up another pal.  A chunky, beefy nondescript.  I was meditating a jump across “the desert.”  The older hoboes had warned me against it, saying it was a cruel trip ... the train crews knew no compunction against ditching a fellow anywhere out in the desert, where there would be nothing but a tank of brackish water....

My new chum, on the other hand, swore, that, to one who knew the ropes, it was not so hard to make the jump on the Southern Pacific ... through Arizona and New Mexico, to El Paso.  He said he would show me how to wiggle into the refrigerator box of an orange car ... on either end of the orange car is a refrigerator box, if I remember correctly ... access to which is gained through the criss-cross bars that hold up a sort of trap-door at the top.  It was in the cold season, so there was now no ice inside.  These trap-doors are always officially sealed, when the car is loaded.  To break a seal is a penitentiary offense.

I stood off and inspected the place I was supposed to go in at.  The triangular opening seemed too small for a baby to slide through.  I looked my chunky pal up and down and laughed.

“—­think I can’t make it, eh?... well, you watch ... there’s an art in this kind of thing just like there is in anything.”

Inch by inch he squeezed himself in.  Then he stood up inside and called to me to try ... and he would pull me the rest of the way, if I stuck.  He was plump and I was skinny.  It ought to be easy for me.  Nevertheless, it was the hardest task I ever set myself ...  I stuck half-way.  My pal pulled my shirt into rags, helping me through,—­I had handed my coat in, previously, or he would have ripped that to pieces, too.  It seemed that all the skin went off my hips, as I shot inside with a bang.  And none too soon.  A “shack” (brakeman) passed over the tops of the cars at almost that very moment.  We lay still.  He would have handed me a merciless drubbing if he had caught me, with my nether end hanging helplessly on the outside.