312 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



I would like to say something more of my comrades of the 

 plains; those rough, unsympathetic fellows whose toils and 

 hardships I shared so many eventful months. After our 

 separation I never heard of one of them, although our num- 

 bers ranged from thirty to sixty — doubling after our second 

 train was coupled on. On my arrival home, a half year from 

 the time we parted in Salt Lake, I wrote to one or two Mis- 

 sourians whose localities I knew, but, either from their inability 

 to '' read writing " or disinclination to start a correspondence, 

 they never replied. The addresses of the only two I was in- 

 terested in, " Scottie " and Finlay, I did not know. The former 

 I have sufficiently alluded to ; of the last I will say a word or 

 two more. He was a Canadian by birth, a fact he wished con- 

 cealed from his companions, for fear of their prejudice, al- 

 though his sensitiveness soon gave way to contempt. He was 

 a youth of intelligence and should have known better than to 

 have started on such a journe}^, lacking the ability as he did 

 to bring himself down to the circumstances around him in 

 the way of associating with his mates and adapting himself to 

 rough work. Gentle in appearance he was plucky to the verge 

 of science. His brother ox-drivers, who were disposed to 

 criticize his mode of handling a whip and managing his cattle, 

 he could not tolerate, holding himself aloof from them ; yet 

 at times I have known him to unbend until he was quite 

 familiar. I remember one time in particular when he put his 

 arm in an affectionate manner around a " Piker's " neck, and 

 getting his head in a vise-like grip, gave the "bull-whacker" 

 such a pounding for an unseemly remark he made that he 

 bawled for mercy. I mention Finlay now, as I have before, 

 as being the only congenial friend I had in the train, and 

 when through sickness he turned back at Fort Kearney, I felt 

 a loneliness and isolation the rest of the journey which can 

 only be understood through a knowledge of my surroundings. 



An overland journey to California now cannot be compared 



