It’s not all the time jus’ the two of us. We ain’t anti-social er nothin’. We’ll hitch up with one er two other guys fer awhile. Some of ‘em we’ll stay with fer a little bit, but it ain’t good ta travel with too many guys. Them local people gits nervous if they see a a whole gang a tramps jump off a train at once. One er two tramps c’n git through a town ‘thout ‘bein’ noticed, but a bunch a guys together sticks out like a sore thumb, ‘n them cops’ll be down ta the jungle, checkin’ yas out.

Hell,we don’t mind if a guy wants ta partner with us fer a bit, ‘long as he’s OK.  If he ain’t, we goes our sep’rit way. Like this guy the other night. He climbs in our car while they’re makin’ a crew change in Bend. We is sleepin’ like a couple logs. Didn’t even know the train’d stopped. We’re both sleepin’ there in the car, ‘n I wake up ta this soun’ like a bear growlin’ er somethin’. I look over, ‘n here’s this other tramp sacked out by the door, snorin’ like nothin’ I ever heard. We’re waitin’ on the main line, so I figgered soon as we git movin’ again the noise a the train’ll drown hin out. Goddamn if he didn’t snore louder n’ the motherfuckin’ train. No shit, ‘n them emptys is fuckin’ lound enough ta leave yer ears ringin’, the way they rattles along, ‘n this sone of a bitch was louder. We got stuck on a sidin’ half the night, listenin’ ta him grunt ‘n growl like some sort a animal.

I threw a piece a wood at him ta wake him up. Told him ta give us a break with that snorin’. So this guy gits up ‘n comes over ta where we’s sacked out, ‘n sez, “I thought I reca’nized yer voice.” Turned out we’d worked with him on a farm in Montanta couple years back. We got ta talkin’ ‘bout where we’s headed, ‘n he sez he’s goin’ the same place, ‘n asks if we’d mind if he partnered up with us fer awhile. So we sez OK, seein’s how we kinda knew him already from that job.

We talked fer awhile, ‘n dozed back off ta sleep, ‘n I’ll be goddamned if this son of a bitch didn’t start up with that snorin’ again, echoin’ through that empty car loud enough ta wake the dead. We was sayin’ how we gotta have a talk with him ‘bout that in the mornin’. Finally I sez, “Mornin’ nothin’, I ain’t spendin’ another night in the same car as that goddamn grizzly bear.”

It was barely gittin’ light when we pulled inta K. Falls. We rolled up our gear ‘n waited by the door till we hit them SP yards. It slows down some when it’s windin’ through all them switches. Soon’s it slowed enough so’s we could git off, we give our gear a heave out the door, ‘n hopped off. Left that son of a bitch ta snore by his own damn self.

100.