The main thing I learned to believe in and expect in my general manager was a great efficiency. All through my tramp experiences at his request, I found, even in _tramp_ life, that the great thing is getting there and doing something. My report to him about the general ability of the police force, which he and his subordinates had got together for the purpose of completely ridding the property of the tramp nuisance, was that I thought he had at least got the Fort Wayne road so cleaned up, in that respect, that no "respectable" tramp would ride on it. In making this report I said to the general manager: "They are stealing coal on the Lake Shore Railroad. There is a man who told me that on the Lake Shore Railroad every twentieth train, before it gets forty miles out of Buffalo, gets dug into." On that same expedition for the general manager I ran up against two tramp camps at the end of one of the "Short Lines" at Ashtabula. My interest at that time was not to disturb either camp at all. I went down to the Lake Shore Railroad, toward their coal chutes, and there I found two camps. The fires of these were being bountifully supplied by coal taken from the adjoining railroad company. My position was peculiar. Tramps, and criminals for that matter, do not like to have any one approach what they believe to be their property. I went to one of the camps, and sat down on a railroad tie. Pretty soon a person of unquestionable importance in his own tramp line, said to me: "Have you a match?" "I think I have. I'll see." "If you find one, go over and build your own fire." I did so, and was left more or less in peace CHAPTER XXIII RAILROAD EXPERIENCES At that time there was a collection of men, called the "Lake Shore Push." These men thought that they had the Lake Shore Railroad in their hands, from the criminal end of it, or, perhaps, I should say, the hold-up end of it. Their history is a matter hard to explain. They had been known on or about the Lake Shore Railroad, to my knowledge, for twenty years easily. They are worth while considering in a paragraph or two as showing how criminal "mobs" are made up. The Lake Shore Railroad for some reason or other has been infested with box-car robbers, hold-up men, for about the number of years suggested. For some reason, the Lake Shore gang found it convenient to organize itself in so far as organization is possible in criminal life. Criminals of different types got together, and said: "We will run this road as we think it should be run according to our ways of looking at things." The management of the road had nothing to say that was of any use. So the Lake Shore gang proceeded, and robbed cars, even threw a steer off a car when it wanted to hold a barbecue, held up the polite Ohio politician beating his way to the extent of forty cents, had all those plants supposed to be between Buffalo and Chicago, and generally made themselves a criminal nuisance.