But the beams or cleats I found myself on were not the broad, generous ones that at that time were usually on box-cars.  On the contrary, they were very narrow—­not more than an inch and a half in breadth.  I couldn’t get half of the width of my sole on them.  Then there was nothing to which to hold with my hands.  True, there were the ends of the two box-cars; but those ends were flat, perpendicular surfaces.  There were no grips.  I could only press the flats of my palms against the car-ends for support.  But that would have been all right if the cleats for my feet had been decently wide.

As the freight got out of Philadelphia she began to hit up speed.  Then I understood what the shack had meant by suicide.  The freight went faster and faster.  She was a through freight, and there was nothing to stop her.  On that section of the Pennsylvania four tracks run side by side, and my east-bound freight didn’t need to worry about passing west-bound freights, nor about being overtaken by east-bound expresses.  She had the track to herself, and she used it.  I was in a precarious situation.  I stood with the mere edges of my feet on the narrow projections, the palms of my hands pressing desperately against the flat, perpendicular ends of each car.  And those cars moved, and moved individually, up and down and back and forth.  Did you ever see a circus rider, standing on two running horses, with one foot on the back of each horse?  Well, that was what I was doing, with several differences.  The circus rider had the reins to hold on to, while I had nothing; he stood on the broad soles of his feet, while I stood on the edges of mine; he bent his legs and body, gaining the strength of the arch in his posture and achieving the stability of a low centre of gravity, while I was compelled to stand upright and keep my legs straight; he rode face forward, while I was riding sidewise; and also, if he fell off, he’d get only a roll in the sawdust, while I’d have been ground to pieces beneath the wheels.

And that freight was certainly going some, roaring and shrieking, swinging madly around curves, thundering over trestles, one car-end bumping up when the other was jarring down, or jerking to the right at the same moment the other was lurching to the left, and with me all the while praying and hoping for the train to stop.  But she didn’t stop.  She didn’t have to.  For the first, last, and only time on The Road, I got all I wanted.  I abandoned the bumpers and managed to get out on a side-ladder; it was ticklish work, for I had never encountered car-ends that were so parsimonious of hand-holds and foot-holds as those car-ends were.