The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1906-08-09
DEATH VALLEY TRAMPS.
THEIR SEARCH FOR FOOD, DRINK
AND SHELTER.

AND SHELTER.
| Strange Life of These Chronic Ho-
boes-Prey Upon Rancnmen-Re-
venge ouf One Who Was Ordered
to Leave-crimes They Commit
The Tramp Prospector
What would you who feed an oc-
casional hobo from your back door
step and wonder at his feet worn from
! tramping over a few miles OF we'll laid
roads, his clothes grass strewn from
sleeping in haymows, think of tramp
who covers hundreds of miles year,
whose feeding places are from twenty
five to fifty miles apart, whose water
ing places are equally distant from
each other-in short, whose bed and
beat, SC to speak, are the vast floor
of the desert?
Yet there is exactly such class,
real tramps, yet as different from the
tramps of cities as day is from night,
tramps with nothing to do but eat
They do not have to beg; food comes
to them through fear. They do not
have to search out sheltering barns at
| nightfall; a greasewood bush is their
shelter, the sands of the desert their
couch
In 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 al
outgrowth from civilized places, but an
origination of it's 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 it's hoboes who wan
der up and down its dismal length
through all seasons of the year save
! the very hottest part C 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
numerous, 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, Ivanpah 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 popularity 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 a few earn a little money
during their months of 'idleness' in
the town and spend that for clothing,
but as rule they are garbed in more
different colors than was Joseph,
though of more subdued hue.
Over his back the desert tramp
slings a gunnysack, in which are a
couple of empty tin cans, beer bottle
or two of water and such food as he
can beg or steal. Thus equipped, usu-
ally without weapon of any sort, ne
invades a country which has brought
more men to death than any other
equal area in the world outside the
great battlefelds.
Usual lly his first stop will be some
twenty-five miles out at desert ranch
or a solitary mining camp. On the
way he travels as slowly as his food
supply will let him. The cactus fruit
is ripening about the time OF year in
which he reaches the cactus fields, and
this helps him a bit on his way, and
there are huge chuckawallahs Qizards
Of two feet in length or more with edi-
hle tails) to be had for the killing, and
with these he can live for some time
on a small actual ration.
Where night overtakes him he sleeps
and by dear experience he knows which
water holes he can depend on yet to
contain the life giving fluid. Should
one of these 'tanks" fail him in time
of exceptional drought he must push
on to the next one or retreat to the
settlement whence he came. II either
Of these is too far for him to reach ne
dies, as many of his kind have died in
the years that are gone, uncared Tor
by man or beast, for not even the dogs
Of the desert will accompany THESE
tramps on their Journeys. Teamsters
and prospectors do not stop TO oury
the tramp when his body Is found
which is not often; the sun and the
storms of the boundless space take
| -,Lo, ba dioc indeed