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William T. Cox's
“ T H E    H O D A G    A N D   O T H E R   T A L E S    O F   T H E   L O G G I N G   C A M P S ”
(  90th  A N N I V E R S A R Y    H Y P E R T E X T   E D I T I O N  )
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my permanent address was Sing Sing for quite a spell. My next book, I was more careful in selecting a title and this went over big and was one of the best sellers. It was called, “The Broken Brake Beam”, or “The Bum’s Flight from the Haunted Box Car”. Do you mean to say that you have never read that book?”
    I told him that I had not read it. Then he went on, “I see that you are not up on the classics. I’d advise you to move into town. I mean no offense I am merely giving enlightenment.”
    About six o’clock, he discovered what time it was and he started to sing something appropriate for the occasion :
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    “Six o’clock in the morning, the city whistle
          blew
When a box car door flew open and a hobo
          hove in view”.
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    Then he started on something else about his mother in law. I can’t remember it, I wish that I could. It went something like this,
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    “ A tarantula sat on a scorpion’s back
      And howled in ghoulish glee
      I’ve side tracked my dear mother in law
      And I’m off for the Sante Fe.”
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    Suddenly, there was a grinding of brakes and the train came to a stop. “So long, bed fellow, there is a drink left in the bottle for you”, and with that, he was gone, one more piece of flotsam set adrift. Well, to make a long story short about two weeks later I had beaten my way west and landed at Bozeman, Montana.
    Luck was with me, for I got a job the first day after my arrival, as a cowboy. I was given the job of fence rider and with the good horse that I had, I was very happy. I became, if I do say so, an adept in the use of the lasso. I secured a Mexican lariat that I was proud of and which put a hole in my pocketbook.
    Then came the dry years, cattle had to go and I was out of a job. I decided to try the railroad and was fortunate in getting a job as wiper of engines on the Northern Pacific Railroad at Livingston, Montana.
    For three months, I wiped engines and then one morning, I was called to go out as fireman on one of those big locomotives. I did not have a regular run, I was just on the extra list. When I changed from one engine to another, I always took my treasured lariat with me and attached the saddle end securely to the engine, for what reason, I can’t say, but that was my habit.
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