The lingering sunset across the plain Kissed the rear end of an east-bound train, And shone on the passing track close by Where a dingbat sat on a rotten tie. He was ditched by the “shack,” and cruel fate, The “con” highballed, and the manifest freight, Pulled out on the stem behind the mail, And beat it east on a sanded rail. As she pulled away in the fading night He could see the gleam of her red tail lights. Then the moon arose, and the stars came out; He was ditched on the Gila Monster Route. There was nothing in sight but sand and space; No chance for a bo to feed his face; Not even a shack to beg for a lump. Nor a hen house there to frisk for a gump. As he gazed far out on the solitude He dropped his head and began to brood. He thought of the time he lost his pal In the hostile berg of Stockton, Cal. They had mooched the stem and threw their feet, And speared four bits on which to eat; But deprived themselves of their daily bread, And sluffed the coin for dago-red. Then, down by the tracks, in the jungle’s glade, On the cool, green grass in the tule’s shade, They shed their coats, and ditched their shoes, And tanked up full of that colored booze. Then, they took a flop with their hides plumb full, And did not hear the harness bull, Till he shook them out of their boozy nap, With a husky voice and a loaded sap. They were charged with vag, for they had no kale, And the judge said sixty days in jail; But the john had a bundle, the worker’s plea, So he gave him a floater and set him free. They had turned him out, but ditched his mate, So he grabbed the guts of an east-bound freight; He had held his form to the rusty rods Till the brakeman hollered, “Hit the sod.” So the bo rolled off and in the ditch, With two switch lights and a rusty switch, A poor, old, seedy, half-starved bo On a hostile pike without a show. Then all at once from out of the dark Came the short, sharp notes of a coyote’s bark; The bo looked up and quickly rose, And shook the dust from his threadbare clothes. Far off in the west through the moonlight night He saw the gleam of a big head light; An east-bound stock run hummed the rail, It was due at the switch to clear the mail. As she pulled up close the head-end “shack” Threw the switch to the passing track, The stock rolled in and off the main, The line was clear for the west-bound train. As she hove in sight far up the track, She was working steam with the brake shoes slack; Whistling once at the whistling post, She flittered by like a frightened ghost.