The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1906-09-22
DEATH Valley TRAMPS.
THEIR SEARCH FOR FOOD, DRINK
AND SHELTER.

/ ''S fi0't!S
I What would ynu who feed an oc-
| casional hobo from Eo;y back door
| step and wonder al his feet worn from
| tramping over lew miles Of wen laid
roads. his clothes grass streWn from
sleeping in hayMGws. think of a tramp
who covers hundreds OF miles a year,
whose feeding places are from twenty
live to fifty miles apart, whose water
ing places are equally distant from
each other-in short, whose bed and
be;~. 50 10 speak, are the vast floor
OF the desert?
Yet there is exactly such a class
real ramps. yet as different from the
tramps of cities as day is from night
tramps with nothing to do bat eat
They do not have to reg: food comes
to them through fear They do not
nave 10 search Out sheltering barns at
nlShtfall; a 9reaseW0od bush is their
shelter, the sands OF the desert their
couch
lii spite of its arid wastes, in spite
OF the discOmforts and the positive
dangers to which even we'll equipped
travellers on the desert are subjected,
says the San Francisco Chronicle. the
great sandy plain is come to have
species of tramp all its own, not an
outsrowth from civilized places. but an
origination OF its own, an interesting
as we'll as novel branch of worthless
tribe.
Even Death Valley, the most barren
and dangerous Of all deserts known to
civilized man, has its hoboes who wan
Ger up and down its dismal length
through all seasons of the year save
the very hottest part CT the summer.
The headquarters of all desert
tramps are in some small town on the
borders Of the region over which they
wander. Daggett has more than its
share of them. So also has Rands-
burg. Johannesburg. Ivanpah, and all
the rest of the scattered settlements
that dot the level plain. They are not.
these foot travellers. yet in
proportion to the population they are
probably as plentiful as their brethren
of the Coast are around San Francisco
and Los Angeles.
Their methods of operation are vast
ly different from these OF the Coast
hoboes. Leaving Daggett, Iyanpah or
whatever little town they have cum
bered during the months of greatest
heat, some time in late September or
October they strike out alone across
the desert One peculiarly of this
class Of tramps is that they never
move about in companies. Indeed, one
desert hobo is usually the sworn enemy
Of all the rest of his kind. For cloth
ing they have such things as they can
beg. possibly few earn little money
during their months of 'ideness" in |
The town and spend that for clothing, |
but as a rule they are garbed in more I
different colors than was Joseph, |
hough of more subdued hue.
Over his back the desert tramp |
sings a gunnysack, in which are
couple of empty tin cans, beer bottle /
)r two of water and such food as he |
an beg or steal Thus equipped, usu-
lily without weapon of any sort, he
nvades a country which has brought /
more men to death than any other
EQUAL area in the world outside the
great battlefields.
Usually his first stop will be some
twenty-five miles out at desert ranch
" a solitary mining camp. On the
way he travels as slowly as his food
upply will let him. The cactus fruit
s ripening about the time Of year in
which he reaches the cactus fields, and
his helps him a bit on his way, and
here are huge chuckawallahs QiZards
f two feet in length or more with edi-
lie tails) to be had for the killing, and
With these he can live for some time
n a small actual ration.
Where night overtakes him he sleeps
nd by dear experience he knows which
,ater holes he can depend on yet to
the life giving fluid. Should
ne Of these tanks" fail him in time
( exceptional drought he must push
n to the next one or retreat to the
ettlement whence he came. If either
f these is too far for him to reach he
les. as many of his kind have died in
he wears that are gone. uncared for
v man or beast, for net even the dogs
{ the desert will accompany these
ramps on their journeys. Transfers
nd prospectors do not stop to bury
ne tramp when his body IS found,
,hich is not often; the sun and the
forms of the boundless space take
are of him when he dies, as, indeed,
ley did in life.
But if the water hole toward which
q tranps does contain plenty of water
e will sometimes camp near 1t for
,veral days. To these springs, too,
)me occasional prCspectors, alone