d, the private car and engine went east, and the tracks died for
keeps.

That day went by, and the next, and nothing moved, and in the
meantime, pelted by sleet, and rain, and hail, the two thousand hoboes
lay beside the track. But that night the good people of Council Bluffs
went the railroad officials one better. A mob formed in Council
Bluffs, crossed the river to Omaha, and there joined with another mob
in a raid on the Union Pacific yards. First they captured an engine,
next they knocked a train together, and then the united mobs piled
aboard, crossed the Missouri, and ran down the Rock Island right of
way to turn the train over to us. The railway officials tried to
copper this play, but fell down, to the mortal terror of the section
boss and one member of the section gang at Weston. This pair, under
secret telegraphic orders, tried to wreck our train-load of
sympathizers by tearing up the track. It happened that we were
suspicious and had our patrols out. Caught red-handed at
train-wrecking, and surrounded by twenty hundred infuriated hoboes,
that section-gang boss and assistant prepared to meet death. I don't
remember what saved them, unless it was the arrival of the train.

It was our turn to fall down, and we did, hard. In their haste, the
two mobs had neglected to make up a sufficiently long train. There
wasn't room for two thousand hoboes to ride. So the mobs and the
hoboes had a talkfest, fraternized, sang songs, and parted, the mobs
going back on their captured train to Omaha, the hoboes pulling out
next morning on a hundred-and-forty-mile march to Des Moines. It was
not until Kelly's Army crossed the Missouri that it began to walk,
and after that it never rode again. It cost the railroads slathers of
money, but they were acting on principle, and they won.

Underwood, Leola, Menden, Avoca, Walnut, Marno, Atlantic, Wyoto,
Anita, Adair, Adam, Casey, Stuart, Dexter, Carlham, De Soto, Van
Meter, Booneville, Commerce, Valley Junction--how the names of the
towns come back to me as I con the map and trace our route through the
fat Iowa country! And the hospitable Iowa farmer-folk! They turned out
with their wagons and carried our baggage; gave us hot lunches at noon
by the wayside; mayors of comfortable little towns made speeches of
welcome and hastened us on our way; deputations of little girls and
maidens came out to meet us, and the good citizens turned out by
hundreds, locked arms, and marched with us down