An Autobiography of Jack London by Jack London Read Free Book Online Page A

going to make the first “pass” at me. But slugging is far from their minds.
    â€œI thought you was ditched,” says the shack who had held me by the collar.
    â€œIf you hadn’t let go of me when you did, you’d have been ditched along with me,” I answer. “How’s that?” he asks.
    â€œI’d have gone into a clinch with you, that’s all,” is my reply. They hold a consultation, and their verdict is summed up in:— “Well, I guess you can ride, Bo. There’s no use trying to keep you off.”
    And they go away and leave me in peace to the end of their division.
    I have given the foregoing as a sample of what “holding her down” means. Of course, I have selected a fortunate night out of my experiences, and said nothing of the nights—and many of them—when I was tripped up by accident and ditched.
    In conclusion, I want to tell of what happened when I reached the end of the division. On single-track, transcontinental lines, the freight trains wait at the divisions and follow out after the passenger trains. When the division was reached, I left my train, and looked for the freight that would pull out behind it. I found the freight, made up on a side-track and waiting. I climbed into a boxcar half full of coal and lay down. In no time I was asleep.
    I was awakened by the sliding open of the door. Day was just dawning, cold and gray, and the freight had not yet started. A “con” (conductor) was poking his head inside the door.
    â€œGet out of that, you blankety-blank-blank!” he roared at me.
    I got, and outside I watched him go down the line inspecting every car in the train. When he got out of sight I thought to myself that he would never think I’d have the nerve to climb back into the very car out of which he had fired me. So back I climbed and lay down again.
    Now that con’s mental processes must have been paralleling, mine, for he reasoned that it was the very thing I would do. For back he came and fired me out.
    Now, surely, I reasoned, he will never dream that I’d do it a third time. Back I went, into the very same car. But I decided to make sure. Only one side-door could be opened. The other side-door was nailed up. Beginning at the top of the coal, I dug a hole alongside of that door and lay down in it. I heard the other door open. The con climbed up and looked in over the top of the coal. He couldn’t see me. He called to me to get out. I tried to fool him by remaining quiet. But when he began tossing chunks of coal into the hole on top of me, I gave up and for the third time was fired out. Also, he informed me in warm terms of what would happen to me if he caught me in there again.
    I changed my tactics. When a man is paralleling your mental processes, ditch him. Abruptly break off your line of reasoning, and go off on a new line. This I did. I hid between some cars on an adjacent side-track, and watched. Sure enough, that con came back again to the car. He opened the door, he climbed up, he called, he threw coal into the hole I had made. He even crawled over the coal and looked into the hole. That satisfied him. Five minutes later the freight was pulling out, and he was not in sight. I ran alongside the car, pulled the door open, and climbed in. He never looked for me again, and I rode that coal-car precisely one thousand and twenty-two miles, sleeping most of the time and getting out at divisions (where the freights always stop for an hour or so) to beg my food. And at the end of the thousand and twenty-two miles I lost that car through a happy incident. I got a “set-down,” and the tramp doesn’t live who won’t miss a train for a set-down any time.

Chapter 3
Pictures

    â€œWhat do it matter where or ‘ow we die, So long as we’ve our ‘ealth to watch it all?”
    â€”Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
    P erhaps the greatest charm of tramp-life is the absence of monotony. In