The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1893-01-19

man who begged for mercy, but he
could and did give him a frightful re-
turn for the misery Mrs. Perry had en-
dured. For a moment he considered
how he could punish the fellow, and
then his eyes fell on the stove. =.
The steak was bubbling ON top and
scorching below over the redhot Goals,
while the salt in browning heap lay
on the middle.
''Hold out your hands fat" said Per-
ry. The tramp obeyed, and with tho
knife and fork Perry placed the steak
upon them. The man shrieked with
pain. but dared not drop it.
"You ordered the steak quick and
you shall have it," said Perry. Nov
eat it,
With the ready knife before his eyes
the tramp choked it down, salt and
all, and then disappeared in the night.
The eastern reader may think that
after such an experience the tramp
died on the desert next day, but he
| didn't. and the chances are that by ex.
hibiting his burned hands and telling
! some pitiful story about them he OBJ
! tanned more square meals during the
| next week than he had had in three
months before. That Perry was justi-
lied in his treatment of the man no one
| doubts who knows the desert and its
nomads.
Although rarely it ever done todeath
| by the citizens on whom they prey,
more tramps die violent deaths in this
country than elsewhere. Because the
country is desert they must ride on
the cars in the hot months. There is a
curious rule among the railroads of the
whole Rocky mountain region that
works to the advantage of the tramps.
The Indians of the region are allowed
to ride free on the outside of and be-
tween the cars. J. IS great graft" for
the tramp who f.. a group of Piutes
men do not notice the addition to the
group. and the Indians are not unlike.
ly to share their food with the tramp.
But Indians are not often found on the
railroads in this part of the desert,
while tramps are as plentiful as sand
storms. A train never goes over the
road without carrying tramps or with
out fight between them and the train
men. The utter recklessness of the
tramps in stealing rides is enough to
unnerve the inexperienced spectator.
1t is useless for them to try to board a
train that is standing at a station in
the daytime, SO they walk up the track
and wait there till the train has started
and attained a speed at which it would
be dangerous for an ordinary man tc
try to climb on or even jump from the
platform, and then, grasping the rods
that brace the floor timbers of a car,
they swing themselves under and land
on the brake beams. This is done to
some extent by tramps in the east,
but railroad men say that the tramps
here can board brake beam on a
train going from twenty-five to thirty
miles an hour. The tourist hears this
told so often and SO candidly that he is
obliged to believe it. But sooner OF
later the nerve or the muscle of the
tramp fails, and he drops under the
wheels. So many tramps are killed by
the trains that the local papers give nc
more attention to events of the kline
than New York papers give to the
manning of children by recklessly
! driven trucks. The stories of railroad
accidents on the desert are telegraphec
to the east only when the lives of pas
sengers have been lost, so eastern read
ers do not hear about the killed tramps
but railroad man told the writer tina
out of seven collisions involving freigh
trains, with the details of which hi
was familiar, tramps had been killed
in four.-N Y. Sun.