Somewhere nearby at another fire a bum sang in a raucous, beery voice, “Oh, Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight.” “The Face on the Barroom Floor,” “My Blue Velvet Band,” and “Ostler Joe” were alcoholically recited by a fat, red-faced bum in a greasy coat, after which the convention stretched out on the warm ground and slumbered peacefully in the balmy summer air.

The cook of our party was a stranger to me. A tall, lank man of fifty, with a straggly black beard and matted black hair hanging to his shoulder. He never spoke except when the bottle was passed to him. Then he would hold it aloft and in a dead, empty voice offer his unfailing toast. “The stool pigeon is the coming race.”

“Kid,” said George, when I asked him about the cook. “He’s crazy as a bed bug and the best mulligan maker on the road. Montana Blacky is welcome at any bum camp anywhere, and he spends his life going from jungle to jungle.”