The chief job of the “dicks” is to keep the “bos” off the trains. The private police are unpopular, not only among homeless men, but also among the employees of the railroads. Brakemen and switchmen will often aid tramps in their effort to avoid the police. Railroad police must often contend with a lack of co-operation by the civil police. The town police, or “town clown” as he is called, may order the tramps to leave on the “next train,” while the railroad police may be making every effort to prevent their riding the trains. The town police are not anxious to fill the jail; they prefer that the transients move on; they reason that the railroad should take away what the railroad brought. The railroad policeman shows results, not by the number of convictions as the civil police, but by his ability to keep at a minimum the number of offenses against railroad property. His endeavor is to put fear into the hearts of all trespassers on the right-of-way. He becomes a hunter of men, not to seize and detain them, but to pursue and terrorize them. He is to the railroad property what the scarecrow is to the cornfield. Railroad police sometimes drive men off fast-moving trains by throwing stones or shooting at them. Not infrequently they catch and maltreat a tramp; however, they are seldom able to get hold of a veteran tramp. The inexperienced man or the boy is more likely to be caught. These means of putting fear into men do not stop tramping. As they become fearful of the railroad “bull,” they become more cautious, and the “bull’s” problem is increasingly difficult. WHAT THE TRAMP THINKS OF THE PRIVATE POLICE To migrants the railroad is “the tramp’s traditional highway.” The tramp, however, expects opposition from the railroad police and even from the train crews; nevertheless he measures his success as a “boomer” by his ability to outwit this opposition. Encounters with the railroad police are a favorite theme of conversation in the “jungles” and along the “stem.” One man tells of being held in Hutchinson, Kansas, on suspicion: 57. A bunch of us came in on a freight and started up town. It was about midnight and the moon was shining. We were sneaking along the shade of a row of box cars. A couple of men halted us and ordered us to come out into the light. I had a notion to run but one of the other fellows said they had “gats” and we’d better take no chances. It was a good thing we didn’t run because we found out that a couple of men had escaped from the jail. All the police and a lot of the citizens had been drafted to find them. Most of them carried guns and nothing would have suited them better than to have had some one to shoot at.