We spent the biggest part of the day in the shade of the large Reservoir building opposite the depot, and but a few feet from the Colorado River. That night a Mexican living in one of the adobe houses near the railroad yards supplied each of us with a large bottle of water for the long two hundred and eighty mile journey across the desert, but in dodging the brakemen while attempting to board a Los Angeles freight train, we became separated and it was the last I ever saw of my friend Allen. I managed to hide in a car loaded with scrap iron. Only once did I leave this car. We reached the first division point, Indio, Cal., about 3 o'clock in the morning. My bottle of water had long since run dry, and I was once more beginning to suffer the acute pangs of desert thirst. With as little noise as possible, I slipped from the car and into the pump house (which is about the only building of any kind that Indio contains). In fact, between Yuma and Indio, for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, there isn't a single town--nothing but desert and cactus trees. The man in the pump house filled my bottle from a hydrant, and taking a big drink from a large tin cup, which I also filled from the hydrant, I hurried through the darkness to the scrap iron car nearly a half mile down the track. I was about crawling in, when a low groan from under the car attracted my attention. Peering under the car, I was amazed to see a man on the rods. "For God's sake give me a drop of water," he begged piteously. I passed him the bottle of water, and invited him to drink half of it. The poor fellow eagerly took a long pull at it, passing it back scarcely half full, with a grateful "Thank you." "I could drink five bottles like that," he said, smacking his lips. The train now started, preventing further conversation, and I quickly crawled back into the scrap iron car. The next day about 11 a. m. we pulled into the yards at Los Angeles. As soon as the train stopped in the yards I jumped out of the car and looked for the man on the rods, but he was gone. CHAPTER IX. _Thrown Into Jail at Los Angeles._ Upon seeing no one near, I lifted my grip from the car door and started down town in search of a lodging place. I found a nice place at No. 128 E. First street, and the following day I got a job with the S. P. Railroad Company, trucking freight at 20 cents per hour. Los Angeles is probably the greatest fruit market in the world. Oranges, grapes, peaches and apricots are among the principal fruits raised. During the orange season you can buy oranges for ten cents per dozen. A careful estimate places the number of oranges grown in California every year at 900,000,000. All fruit is cheap. The finest kind of malaga grapes can be purchased on the streets of Los Angeles for 2½ cents per pound. You can live on fruit there over six months in the year. The winters there are no ways as cold as in North Carolina.