He reminded me of my own experience through South Carolina and Georgia. We made a lot of noise getting into the stack, and had not more than become comfortable when a brakeman's lantern was thrust into one end. "Hello! Hello! in the pipe there," he shouted. We crawled out and asked him to let us go, but it was "no go." "Give me a dollar apiece, or off you go at the next stop," said the brakeman, and he kept his word. We were put down at a little town sixteen miles from Vernon, Texas. We immediately set out to walk to Vernon, and had proceeded along the track about ten miles when a large farm wagon containing seven or eight farmers overtook us. They were going to Vernon and offered us a ride. At this time of the year the farmers are walking up and down the streets of Vernon offering as high as $2.00 per day and board for men to work in the harvest fields. In fact, at no time of the year a farm laborer in this part of Texas is not paid less than $30.00 per month and board. I had never heard of farm hands getting such high wages, and suggested to White that we work in Vernon long enough to pay our way to Arizona or New Mexico, but like all young fellows who stay in the West awhile, he had caught the fever of roving and rambling from one green pasture to another--content no where--and put up a strong kick. He wanted to work in Vernon but a few days only. "You're from the East, and you know nothing about good wages," he said. "Why this is nothing to what we can make in Roswell, New Mexico, gathering apples." I had heard of the wonderful apple orchards around Roswell, and then, too, the climate would be better for me. I decided White was right, and that we would not stay long in Vernon. Late that afternoon a ranchman took us out in his buggy to a ranch about five miles from town. He had offered us $2.00 per day and board to shock wheat. Neither of us had ever shocked any wheat, but he said we could soon learn. Judging from my companion's conversation since I had met him, I had a suspicion he was a better pool player than he was wheat shocker, but the wealthy ranch owners of Texas at this season of the year, when their thousands of acres of land are lying in unshocked wheat, are glad enough to get a man, even if he is a slow worker and from the city. Some time after dark we came upon a small, one-room hut. Near the hut was a large, covered wagon. "Here's where you sleep," said the ranchman. "Just go right in and make your bed out of wheat." Everything was very still in the hut, considering the fact that the one room contained some ten or a dozen men; but the men who had labored long and hard under the hot Texas sun that day were now scattered here and there about the hut floor, wrapped in a deep, sweet sleep. (Each of these men was from a different city or State, as I afterwards learned.)