"Why don't you try to break up the tramp camps?"
"We do try it, but they come back again."
"Don't you think you would probably be more successful if you raided them oftener?"
"Yes, I guess we would; but, you see, there ain't any one who's running the thing. When an order comes from the superintendent to make raids we make 'em, but he don't send in that order more'n once in three months, an' the rest o' the time we do pretty much as we like."
"How do you think things would go if you men were organised and had a chief? Would better work be done?"
"Better work would be done, I guess, but it would be a darned sight harder work," and he smiled significantly.
My tramp informant was an old roadster of about forty, who had "held down" the railroad in question for a number of years. I asked him how long it had been an "open" road,—one easy for trespassers to get over.
"As long as the memory of man goes back," he replied, with a suggestive flourish of his hand.
"Are not some divisions harder to beat than others?"
"Once in awhile a division'll get a little horstile, but only fer a few weeks."