"How many tramps are riding trains?"
"I don't see all the trains, so I can't tell you; but I never seen a freight yet that wasn't carryin' at least five bums, 'n' I've seen some carryin' over a hundred In summer there's most as many bums as passengers."
"Is there much robbing of cars going on?"
"Not so much as there might be. The blokes are drunk most of the time, 'n' they let chances go by. If they'd keep sober, 'n' look up good fences, they could do a nice little business."
"Do the police trouble you much?"
"When they round up a camp they're pretty warm, but I don't see much o' them 'cept then. 'Course you wants to look out fer 'em when a train pulls into division yards, 'cause 'f yer handy they'll pinch you; but they ain't goin' to run after you very far. I've heard that they have orders to let the bums ride, so long as there ain't too much swipin' goin' on. The company don't care, some people say."
The trainman that I interviewed was a freight-train conductor who had been in the employ of the company over twenty-five years. I asked him whether he had instructions to keep trespassers off his trains.
"I got the instructions all right enough," he said, "but I don't follow them. I'm not a policeman for the road. I'm a conductor, and I only draw a salary for being that, too. When I was green I used to try to keep the bums off my trains, but I nearly got my head shot off one night and stopped after that. It's the detectives' business to look after such people."
"Do you see much of the detectives?"
"Once in awhile one of them shows up on my trains, but I've never seen them make any arrests. One of them got on my train one day when I was carryin' fifty tramps, and he never went near them."