He began describing the kid who was still asleep in the cab.  I did some quick thinking.  Evidently the family was on the trail of the kid, and the sheriff had received telegraphed instructions from Oregon.  Yes, I had seen the kid.  I had met him first in Ogden.  The date tallied with the sheriff’s information.  But the kid was still behind somewhere, I explained, for he had been ditched from that very overland that night when it pulled out of Rock Springs.  And all the time I was praying that the kid wouldn’t wake up, come down out of the cab, and put the “kibosh” on me.

The sheriff left me in order to interview the shacks, but before he left he said:—­

“Bo, this town is no place for you.  Understand?  You ride this train out, and make no mistake about it.  If I catch you after it’s gone ...”

I assured him that it was not through desire that I was in his town; that the only reason I was there was that the train had stopped there; and that he wouldn’t see me for smoke the way I’d get out of his darn town.

While he went to interview the shacks, I jumped back into the cab.  The kid was awake and rubbing his eyes.  I told him the news and advised him to ride the engine into the round-house.  To cut the story short, the kid made the same overland out, riding the pilot, with instructions to make an appeal to the fireman at the first stop for permission to ride in the engine.  As for myself, I got ditched.  The new fireman was young and not yet lax enough to break the rules of the Company against having tramps in the engine; so he turned down my offer to shove coal.  I hope the kid succeeded with him, for all night on the pilot in that blizzard would have meant death.

Strange to say, I do not at this late day remember a detail of how I was ditched at Rawlins.  I remember watching the train as it was immediately swallowed up in the snow-storm, and of heading for a saloon to warm up.  Here was light and warmth.  Everything was in full blast and wide open.  Faro, roulette, craps, and poker tables were running, and some mad cow-punchers were making the night merry.  I had just succeeded in fraternizing with them and was downing my first drink at their expense, when a heavy hand descended on my shoulder.  I looked around and sighed.  It was the sheriff.

Without a word he led me out into the snow.

“There’s an orange special down there in the yards,” said he.

“It’s a damn cold night,” said I.

“It pulls out in ten minutes,” said he.

That was all.  There was no discussion.  And when that orange special pulled out, I was in the ice-boxes.  I thought my feet would freeze before morning, and the last twenty miles into Laramie I stood upright in the hatchway and danced up and down.  The snow was too thick for the shacks to see me, and I didn’t care if they did.

My quarter of a dollar bought me a hot breakfast at Laramie, and immediately afterward I was on board the blind baggage of an overland that was climbing to the pass through the backbone of the Rockies.  One does not ride blind baggages in the daytime; but in this blizzard at the top of the Rocky Mountains I doubted if the shacks would have the heart to put me off.  And they didn’t.  They made a practice of coming forward at every stop to see if I was frozen yet.