My next encounter occurred at Bureau, Illinois, a division point on the Rock Island. There were four of us on the tender (behind the engine), my room mate and I and two lads who had jumped on some miles down the line. They had been jumping on and off and having a good time generally. Both of them had on white shirts and could be easily recognized by the train men. At Bureau a rough looking “bull” poked his head over the tender, waved a gun, cursed madly and told us to get down from there. We were lying flat on one corner and I did not believe he had seen us. The two boys did as they were told while I held my room mate down and told him not to move. I heard him swearing at the boys as the train pulled out. With a companion I left a Rock Island freight one afternoon to get a drink of water. We came back to see our train far up the track toward Des Moines. I noticed by my table that an express train would soon be in. My companion was a long, lean individual, a bluffing, blustering type probably weighing about 175 pounds. A “bull” was waiting for us at Valley Junction, just outside of Des Moines. He pulled us off and marched us out in front of all the passengers and into the station. We both noticed that we had climbed a mail train and that our future was not very bright. The station agent was not in and I sized Mr. “Bull” up as he searched us. He was a young fellow, not over twenty-five and did not look nearly as hard as he talked. My companion was as pale as a sheet and would say nothing. I talked to him as best I could, and after scaring us to the best of his ability he finally turned us loose, actually buying us a ticket on the auto bus to Des Moines. He acted almost human toward us. A man, prominent in Hobohemia as a soap-boxer, recites this experience out of a great number that he has had with railroad and other private police. 59. I was traveling in Indiana with a man by the name of Sullivan, known around the country as “Sully.” We got off at Flora, a railroad town in Indiana. It was cold and the town was “hostile” because so many “bos” had been there that the people were hardened to them. We knew better than to hang around the railroad yards so we decided to go out of town a ways and build a fire to keep warm while we waited for a train. We started out but Sully decided to return and learn from the switchman when a train would be leaving. I said that I would go out along the track and build a wind break with some old ties and make a fire. I dragged some ties together and had the wind break up by the time Sully returned. I had the fire going too and was taking off my shoes. I had stepped in some water while dragging ties and my feet were wet and cold.