g--a gang with which I had affiliated
at rare intervals. We talked fast and bolted the grub in the half-hour
that followed. Then my freight pulled out, and I was on it, bound west
on the trail of Skysail Jack.

I was delayed between the passes, went two days without food, and
walked eleven miles on the third day before I got any, and yet I
succeeded in passing Skysail Jack along the Fraser River in British
Columbia. I was riding "passengers" then and making time; but he must
have been riding passengers, too, and with more luck or skill than I,
for he got into Mission ahead of me.

Now Mission was a junction, forty miles east of Vancouver. From the
junction one could proceed south through Washington and Oregon over
the Northern Pacific. I wondered which way Skysail Jack would go, for
I thought I was ahead of him. As for myself I was still bound west to
Vancouver. I proceeded to the water-tank to leave that information,
and there, freshly carved, with that day's date upon it, was Skysail
Jack's monica. I hurried on into Vancouver. But he was gone. He had
taken ship immediately and was still flying west on his
world-adventure. Truly, Skysail Jack, you were a tramp-royal, and your
mate was the "wind that tramps the world." I take off my hat to you.
You were "blowed-in-the-glass" all right. A week later I, too, got my
ship, and on board the steamship Umatilla, in the forecastle, was
working my way down the coast to San Francisco. Skysail Jack and
Sailor Jack--gee! if we'd ever got together.

Water-tanks are tramp directories. Not all in idle wantonness do
tramps carve their monicas, dates, and courses. Often and often have I
met hoboes earnestly inquiring if I had seen anywhere such and such a
"stiff" or his monica. And more than once I have been able to give the
monica of recent date, the water-tank, and the direction in which he
was then bound. And promptly the hobo to whom I gave the information
lit out after his pal. I have met hoboes who, in trying to catch a
pal, had pursued clear across the continent and back again, and were
still going.

"Monicas" are the nom-de-rails that hoboes assume or accept when
thrust upon them by their fellows. Leary Joe, for instance, was timid,
and was so named by his fellows. No self-respecting hobo would select
Stew Bum for himself. Very few tramps care to remember their pasts
during which they ignobly worked, so monicas based upon trades are
very rare, though I remember having met t