“Wait till you see her, to-morrow. She’ll buy anything from a barrel of whisky to a baby carriage.” It was a warm night, and riding the front end of the baggage was pleasant enough. “If the bulls grab us off, kid, you say nothing; I’ll talk and tell them who we are and where we’re going. You listen, that’s all. “Say,” he said suddenly, “take off that coat and let me look at it.” He went over it closely by the light from the engine. It was tailor-made, and he found the owner’s name on a piece of white cloth sewed in the inside pocket. He ripped it out, and I put the coat on. “You never can be too careful, kid. We ought to have looked at that before. If Jeff Carr had picked us up at Cheyenne you might have been charged with that lousy burglary by now.” How could a boy help admiring such wisdom? I was flattered to be taken up by one so experienced, so confident and active about his work, and withal, so carefree, happy, and smiling. We were not molested at Evanston, where we got off and waited for our freight train. It came along next day, and that night we dropped off it at Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello, at that time, was just a small railroad town. A famous stopping-off place for the bums bound East, West, North and South. There was a grand jungle by a small, clean river where they boiled up their vermined clothes, or “rags” as they are always called, cooked their mulligans, or, if enough bums got together, held a “convention.” These conventions, like many others, were merely an excuse for a big drunk. Sometimes they would end in a killing, or some drunken bum would fall in the fire and get burned to death, after which they would silently steal away. Oftener, the convention lasted till there was no more money for alcohol, the bums’ favorite drink. The bums then began “pestering the natives” by begging and stealing till the whole town got sore. The town marshal would then appear with a posse armed with “saps,” which is short for saplings, young trees. He stood guard with a shotgun, while the posse fell upon the convention and “sapped up” on those therein assembled and ran them down the railroad track and out of town. We found our junk without trouble, and hastened to “Mary’s.” If I knew more of composition and writing and talking I might do justice to Mary, the fence, and friend of bums and thieves. It’s an injustice to the memory of Mary, or, as she was lovingly called by the bums, “Salt Chunk Mary,” to try to crowd her into a few paragraphs or even a chapter. She should have a book. “Did you eat yet?” was the first thing you heard after entering her house. “I have a pot of beans on the stove and a fine chunk of salt pork in them.” She invariably produced the beans and “fine chunk of salt pork” and always ate as heartily of them as any of her famished guests.