of of one of the
mail-cars. There I lay down, my heart jumping a few extra beats, and
listened to the fun. The whole train crew was forward, and the
ditching went on fast and furious. After the train had run half a
mile, it stopped, and the crew came forward again and ditched the
survivors. I, alone, had made the train out.

Back at the depot, about him two or three of the push that had
witnessed the accident, lay French Kid with both legs off. French Kid
had slipped or stumbled--that was all, and the wheels had done the
rest. Such was my initiation to The Road. It was two years afterward
when I next saw French Kid and examined his "stumps." This was an act
of courtesy. "Cripples" always like to have their stumps examined. One
of the entertaining sights on The Road is to witness the meeting of
two cripples. Their common disability is a fruitful source of
conversation; and they tell how it happened, describe what they know
of the amputation, pass critical judgment on their own and each
other's surgeons, and wind up by withdrawing to one side, taking off
bandages and wrappings, and comparing stumps.

But it was not until several days later, over in Nevada, when the push
caught up with me, that I learned of French Kid's accident. The push
itself arrived in bad condition. It had gone through a train-wreck in
the snow-sheds; Happy Joe was on crutches with two mashed legs, and
the rest were nursing skins and bruises.

In the meantime, I lay on the roof of the mail-car, trying to remember
whether Roseville Junction, against which burg Bob had warned me, was
the first stop or the second stop. To make sure, I delayed descending
to the platform of the blind until after the second stop. And then I
didn't descend. I was new to the game, and I felt safer where I was.
But I never told the push that I held down the decks the whole night,
clear across the Sierras, through snow-sheds and tunnels, and down to
Truckee on the other side, where I arrived at seven in the morning.
Such a thing was disgraceful, and I'd have been a common
laughing-stock. This is the first time I have confessed the truth
about that first ride over the hill. As for the push, it decided that
I was all right, and when I came back over the hill to Sacramento, I
was a full-fledged road-kid.

Yet I had much to learn. Bob was my mentor, and he was all right. I
remember one evening (it was fair-time in Sacramento, and we were
knocking about and having a good time)