“It’s put ’em off or git fired,” remarked another, grimly. “The road couldn’t stand it any longer,” remarked the yardmaster. “Car after car has come into the yards here broken open and any amount of stuff missing. It’s been costing the road a pretty figure to straighten things out with the shippers.” “The tramps get in out here at the heavy grade just east of Byers,” remarked a conductor. “Those fool despatchers load us up so heavy that we can’t make more than six or eight miles an hour up that grade,—sometimes we stick and have to double over. Well, the tramps lay for us there every night, and, while we’re crawling along, or maybe cutting the train in two to double, they pick out a likely looking car of merchandise, break it open, hunt around inside, and throw off what they want, and then drop off themselves. We don’t even know the seals are broken until we get into the yards here.” “There’s a dozen other places on the road just as bad,” said the yardmaster. “But how’s a feller t’ know what’s goin’ on inside a car?” queried a brakeman, sarcastically. “That’s what I’d like to be told.” “Well,” retorted the yardmaster, “I guess the superintendent will tell you quick enough, if he ever gets you on the carpet.” The brakeman snorted skeptically. “I dunno,” he said. “I guess th’ whole thing’s jest a bluff, anyway.” But trainmen and tramps alike soon found out that the management of the road was in deadly earnest. The force of police had been strongly reinforced. Tramps were summarily thrown off the trains. When they showed fight, as they often did at first, they were promptly arrested, arraigned before the nearest police justice, and given a term in the workhouse. To be sure, all this was not accomplished without some cost. One detective was shot through the head and killed, and many others had escapes more or less narrow, but the tramps soon lost their boldness. They no longer broke open freight-cars at will and helped themselves to their contents, or rode from place to place as their fancy dictated. But they took their revenge in other ways. One night an extra west-bound freight ran through an open switch at Greenfield and crashed into the freight-house. An investigation showed that the switch-lock had been broken, and the switch thrown. A night watchman on Section Twenty-eight found a big pile of ties on the track, and stopped another freight just in time to prevent a wreck. Ugly rumours were flying about of the tramps’ intentions, and it was at this juncture that another order came from headquarters. It ran: “NOTICE TO SECTION-FOREMEN