The town of Gardiner, small and somewhat bleak with a string of Pullman cars that came up in the morning and two Pullman porters coming down the street. Now away along the Valley of the Yellowstone, and at first the bleak denuded hills, the rushing river, the clear fast fish. Then the naked hills enlarging into rolling cliffs and forested (the timber deeper here than Utah—the maternal granite now, no longer limestone—and the valley greening with the widening and clean-watered River of Yellowstone). An enchanted valley now with upslope to the east and right and timbered Rockies going into snow and granite and the cliffs, nude spaciousness. The valley is not so green as Mormon land mayhaps—but thick with grasses yellowed somewhat from the teeth of steers. The nude ranges towards the timbered cliffs, and to the west the miracle of evening light and the celebrated river called the Yellowstone and trees most green and marvelous. It is a scene at once familiar and unknown, with elements like those before in Mormon land but here by some miracle transformed into this Itselfness. There are barns now painted red upon the upland rise of ranges to the east and fading light—and so to Livingston, like places known and come to before.
Supper at the U. P. station and the waitress with the tired face, and yet with charm, reticence, and intelligence. Outside, the walls of rain (the moaning of full rivers lapping at the rear) and the bald hills all about. So out and to the westward, the ripe greenery left behind now and the bald ridges closing in. The rise across the Bozeman Pass, and then the steep descent, the U. P. descending steeply with us, and ascending too, the double-header and then the lights of Bozeman—the broad main street ablaze with power of brightness and abundant light. The hotel, the cafe for hamburgers and milk, and so, bed.
Beyond Wolf Point there was only sky and sagebrush, and I began to realize the tremendous size of this country. As a game, I decided to time the distance between human beings; fourteen minutes elapsed between a boy standing beside a lonely ranchhouse and a man working on an oil derrick in what I assumed was the Williston Basin oilfield. Bars are the thing in Montana towns. On the main street of Glasgow I saw the Stockmen's Bar, the Mountain Bar, Starr's Bar, the Mint Bar, and Johnny's Cafe and Bar. Aside from a dry goods store, there was nothing else on the street. At Havre, Montana, where we stopped for twenty minutes, I dashed out for a bloody mary. The bar was like a stock setting from a western movie, the only incongruous note being a woman bartender. Cowboys, all wearing western hats, sat at the bar, and two young men were playing pool. "I don't know what I've done with the celery salt," the lady bartender said. "Leave it out," I said. "I haven't much time." She looked at me severely. "Don't come in here asking me to cut corners," she told me. When she finished making the drink I asked her to pour it into a paper cup, and I sped back to the train. "You've got one minute to spare," the conductor warned, glancing at his watch. "We're moving right on schedule, and I'd hate to have left you."
After I became district roadmaster, my assignment was west from Whitefish to Troy… I regularly stayed at Rexford, Montana, which was about the midpoint of the district. There was a railroad “beanery” right on the station platform next to the depot. The lunch room was on the ground floor, and upstairs, there were six or seven rooms for the enginemen on the helper crews that worked up Rexford Hill to Stryker. Also until the Fernie branch into Canada was taken up in 1938, the branch crews sometimes stayed at the “hotel.” In any event, the sleeping rooms on the ground floor were just across a narrow station platform – about 12 feet from the main line, and just about at the level of the stack of a locomotive. When an eastbound freight train stopped there, the through locomotive would be taking water while the helper coupled on behind the caboose. When ready to go there would be a loud exchange of whistle signals, the lead engine would slowly get underway with much it's stack noise. The grade was not too heavy for a short distance east of the depot, so the train would get going very quickly – so that by the time the helper came by your room it would be working wide open and making 20 or 25 mph. The very earth would tremble, and the old beanery would shake so much that the bed would seem to jump up and down. Anybody who could sleep through it was not of this world. Those were the days of real action.
That night at midnight I walked down a hill to the Milwaukee yards. It was pitch dark. A long freight pulled in; it proved to be a string of empties bound for Seattle. I climbed in a side door, lit a match, looked the floor over and sat down in a corner. I lit my pipe and smoked quietly while waiting for the engine to whistle the "highball." The con went by checking up his cars. He pulled the side door open that I had taken pains to shut. He stuck his head in the doorway and peered into the corners as he flashed his lantern. Finally the light rested on me.
"Hey there! What you riding on?"
I got up rather unconcerned; I knew that I would get out of town even if he put me off. He looked at my card and pulled the door shut, yelling "Empty," as he hit the door with his stick.
In a few minutes the engine whistled the "highball," a long and a short whistle that means "All hoboes aboard." The steam tightened, one succession of bumps was telegraphed down the string of empties, then no noise except the clicking of the rails, the rattling of the cars, and the steady puff of the engines. I lay curled up in the corner and thought of the job that I had left, of Butte, of my destination. I felt lonely. As far as I knew I was the only passenger on the entire freight.
After what seemed like a couple of hours she slowed down and stopped. I was getting cold by this time so I got out. I was in Deer Lodge. In about an hour she started out again and I held her down all day and night getting off only at division points for meals. I found that there were between fifteen and twenty hoboes scattered about various parts of the train. Many had been on the train ever since she left St. Paul. Most of them were going to Washington to harvest the fruit and grain crops.
Soon I was traveling through the picturesque route that the Milwaukee boasts of. The hobo gets a better chance to appreciate the beauty of the route than the man that travels on the limited. We were all sitting in the doorway, and looking over the freight I could see feet hanging out of almost every boxcar.
At a stop a shack went by and seeing us all hanging out of the side doors yelled, "What the hell do you fellows think this is—an open air picnic?"
We grinned and shut the doors, but as soon as she started the doors would invariably be opened again.
Most men who have really lived have had, in some shape, their great adventure. This railway is mine. I feel that a labor and a service so called into being, touching at so many points the lives of so many millions with its ability to serve the country, and its firmly established credit and reputation, will be the best evidence of its permanent value and that it no longer depends upon the life and labor of any single individual.
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