Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-11

NV HAT HAT .,Cgs, would sog you wi, who feed ! an q,
doorstep and wonder at his
feet worn from tramping over a few
miles of well-laid roads his clothes
grass strewn from sleeping in hay
mows, think of a tramp who covers
hundreds of miles In a year, whose
feeding places are from TWENTY-FIVE TO
fifty miles apart, whose watering places
are equally distant from each other
| In short whose bed and beat, so TO
| speak, are the vast floor of the desert ?
Yet, there is exactly such a 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 i'm spite of
the discomforts and the positive dam
gers to which even well equipped traV-
elers on the desert are subject, the great
sandy plain Is come to have species
of tramp all its own not an outgrowth
from civilized places, but an orlglnation
of its own, an interesting as well as
novel branch of a worthless tribe.
Even Death Valley. the most barren
and dangerous of all deserts known to
civilized man, has its hoboes who wan
der up and down it's dismal length
through all seasons of the year save the
very hottest part of the summer.
The Headquarters of all desert tramps
are i'm some small town on the borders
of the region over which they wander.
Daggett has more than its share of
them. So also has Randsburg, Johan-
nesburg. 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 An
geles.
Their methods of operation are vast
ly different from those 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 clothing they
have such things as they can beg, pos
sibly a few earn a little money during
their months of 'idleness'' in the town
and spend that for clothing. but as a
rule they are garbed in more different
colors than was Joseph, though of more
subdued hue
Over his back the desert tramp
sings a gunnysack in which are
couple of empty tin cans, a beer bot
tie or two of water and such food as
he can beg or steal Thus equipped,
usually without weapon of any sort.
he inVadeS 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 a desert ranch
or 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 Cizards
Of two feet in length or more with
edible 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. If
either of these is too far for him to
reach he dies, as many of his kind
have died in the years that are gone.
for by man or beast, for
not even the dogs of the desert will
accompany these tramps on their
Journeys. Transfers and prospectors
10 not stop to bury the tramp when
MS body is found, which is not often;
he sun and the storms of the bound
less space take care of him when
ne dies, as indeed, they did in life.
But if the water hole toward which
he tramps does contain plenty of water
lie will sometimes camp near it for
several days. To these springs, too,