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'Couldn't see 'em fer cinders, he described it, and the monica stuck by me.... Monica? From monos. The tramp nickname. "'Bound south, I answered. 'And how's Slim? "'Bum. Bulls is horstile. "'Where's the push? "'At the hang-out. I'll put you wise. "'Who's the main guy? "'Me, and don't yer ferget it." The lingo was rippling from Leith's lips, but perforce I stopped him. "Pray translate.
After we got clear, I lectured him on women in general and squaws in particular, and he promised to behave. Then we had a hot time with the Little Salmons. He was cuter this time, and I didn't know for keeps, but I guessed. He said it was the medicine man who got horstile; but nothing'll stir up a medicine man quicker'n women, and the facts pointed that way.
The rest of the push can take care of itself. So, as soon as youse two nail a blind, deck her. An' stay on the decks till youse pass Roseville Junction, at which burg the constables are horstile, sloughin' in everybody on sight." The engine whistled and the overland pulled out. There were three blinds on her room for all of us.
The strength of numbers made us pretty nonchalant on most things, but not on Jeff Carr. The connotation of "Jeff Carr" stunned our imagination, numbed our virility, and the whole gang was mortally scared of meeting him. It rarely pays to stop and enter into explanations with bulls when they look "horstile." A swift get-away is the thing to do.
I swung about with a start, and saw Boston and Blackie lying in their bunks, one above the other. Boston had spoken, but they were both eyeing Newman. The dangerous light came into Newman's face. "Mind your own business!" he said, shortly. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, broken by Boston, with a wheedling note in his voice. "Aw, say, Big 'Un, don't get horstile.
They were holding twenty or thirty of us in the city jail, and mysterious word had gone down the line in all directions, that quick telegraph by word-of-mouth that tramps use among themselves, to avoid the town that it was "horstile."... Again rolling miles of arid country.
"Salinas is on the 'hog, the 'bulls' is 'horstile." "I got 'pinched' at El Paso, along with Moke Kid." "Talkin' of 'poke-outs, wait till you hit the French country out of Montreal not a word of English you say, 'Mongee, Madame, mongee, no spika da French, an' rub your stomach an' look hungry, an' she gives you a slice of sow-belly an' a chunk of dry 'punk."
When hoboes pass the word along, concerning a town, that "the bulls is horstile," avoid that town, or, if you must, go through softly. There are some towns that one must always go through softly. Such a town was Cheyenne, on the Union Pacific. Jeff Carr could size up the "front" of a hobo on the instant. He never entered into discussion.
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