We got a room to rest up, and before going to sleep decided that Salt Lake was too small for us. San Francisco was better. Smiler had never been there, and was as anxious to see it as I. Buying tickets was throwing money away. So we beat it down to Ogden and over the Southern Pacific, riding the front end of passenger trains at night, making long jumps, avoiding bums’ camps, paying for our meals, and stealing nothing. We got into Sacramento without mishap, rested up a couple of days, and journeyed along toward the city. We got ditched off our train at Port Costa, and crawled into a hay car for the night. There were a couple of bums in the car already, and more came in later and flopped.

Early next morning we were aroused by a pounding on the side of the car. “Come on out of there!” shouted a man with his head in the door, “yez are all pinched.” We hit the ground, eight of us in all, young and old, large and small. Two men were outside, carrying shortened billiard cues.

“March!” one of them ordered.