After paying for my board and buying a few articles of clothing, I had but $3.00.
I left Dallas one Sunday evening on a street car for Fort Worth. The distance is about 22 miles.
That same afternoon an employment bureau run by Glenn & Co. shipped me for $1.00 from Fort Worth over the Fort Worth and Denver Road to Iowa Park, Tex., to do railroad construction work.
I was trying to reach El Paso, which is only 600 miles over the Texas Pacific Road from Fort Worth, but while in Fort Worth I was told it was almost as much as a man's life was worth to try to beat the T. P. road between these points, on account of the extreme cruelty of the brakemen, so I decided to go around the longest way, which would take me through New Mexico.
On the way to Iowa Park, I fell in with a young man from Chicago, who had also shipped out.
That night we deserted the train at a small station just before reaching Iowa Park.
We were now nearly two hundred miles from Fort Worth and had ridden the entire distance for $1.00.
I have forgotten the young man's name, but will call him White. He said he had left his home in Chicago to settle somewhere in the West and make his fortune.
We decided to travel along together awhile.