The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1885-08-14
had any experience with murdorers OF

had any experience with murderers on
top of u train, but I've had lots to do
with other folks. When the road was
first put into operation l used to say
that 1t would never pay, even for the
renewal Of the ties, because 1t seemed
to me that everybody out here then
wanted to get away, and about three
out of five didn't have money enough
to ride a mile. The times were hard
then. Lots Of fellows had got out
here in the southwest in one way or an
other, and Us there was little doing
here, and not much money being in
vested, all those who were not we'll
fixed when they started soon came to
want. As soon as the trains got to
running you ought to have seen those
poverty-stricken fellows try to get ac-
quainted with US, and endeavor In one
way or another to make arrangements
for to ride east. 1t made me tired more
than once. They'd come with tears in
their eyes, and beg even for lift of
one or two hundred miles.
"When train got ready to pull out
for the east it was always necessary to
go through it and examine every truck
and car to see II there were any stowa-
ways, but even that did not always
work. They would 60 down the track
and wait till the night train came
along, and then board It, hanging on to
the hand rails at the end of the cars,
or laying fiat on tho roofs. We used
to get sick of fighting them, and most
of the boys made up their minds that
the best way to make work little
easier was to let the tramps get out Of
the country. have always thought that
the company kind Of winked at it, too.
Of course our orders were not changed,
but the thing became such q nuisance
that everybody could see that 1t was
best to have 1t over with. After that
when three or four took their place on
q freight we would make q bluff at
them, and II that did not have the de-
In this way the country was soon
cleared Of the most helpless crowd you
ever saw, and it got so after q while
we could start q train out of Pueblo
without hurting the feelings of the pay
ing passengers by clubbing off q gang
of non-paying ones. They would al
ways make determined effort to get
on to passenger train, for every little
while there would be some passenger
aboard who would take pity on one or
moro of them and give them lift.
Most of them seemed perfectly insane
on the subject Of getting back east.
Nothing else would do them any good.
"One night, after we had gone
through the train carefully, and made
sure, as we thought, that nobody was
hanging on, was surprised, on going
back to the caboose, to find q young
fellow sitting on the edge of one Of the
boxes. He had little bundle by his
side, and as he heard me he grabbed 1t
quickly, and then said, jumping up as
he did so:
Don't you touch me. sir. I'm
going home, and II you put hand on
me I'll kill you!
There was something so desperate,
and, after all, such u pitiful tone in his
voice, that couldn't get mad, and as
soon as l satisfied myself that he had
no arms told him to sit down again,
and then had little talk with him.
Hs and aR SspSa aS ~. Eta mSaRech
road had seemed like godsend to him
almost. He had been living on cold
bites around Pueblo and adjacent towns
for long time; had been sick and we'll
nigh distracted, an was then twisted
all out of shape with rheumatism. I
found, on further questioning, that he
came from my part of the country
down east; that he knew all the old
places that did; that he had danced,
driven, and frolicked where I had, and
that he knew a good many Of the folks
that knew. couldn't see one of the
old boys in that shape without think
ing 1t might just as easily have been
me, and. besides giving him square
meal, l introduced him to brakeman
at the end of the run, who promised to
pass him on. We got him to the Mis-
souri, river in great shape, and there he
managed to earn enough to get home.
He is doing we'll now, and this little
ticker here" said Gillian, showing a
handsome gold watch with box-car
neatly engraved on the back, sis what
I've got to remember him by"