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took me to the company's hospital, where we were told that only mill employees were admitted. The "Old Man" asked the nurse what the hell would she do if a man had a broken neck? Let him die? Well, the captain put me on the stage and I rode sixty miles to Portland, Oregon. When I arrived in Portland, I walked to the Masonic Temple and asked a lodge secretary to see that I had the best doctor in town. A brother Mason drove me over to the Good Samaritan Hospital where I entered the Marine Ward. Dr. Goffin patched up my fractured shoulder. I understood from him that the bruise was more severe than the fracture. The bone was held in place with a makeshift gadget until the bruise was healed. In those days penicillin and the sulphur drugs were unknown. I left the hospital twenty-one days later after a cast had been placed on my shoulder. The shipping company paid the doctor and hospital bill, but I did not receive any pay check until I reached San Francisco, some days later. The morning I left the hospital I had six dollars left in my wallet. When I learned that the stage fare was thirteen dollars, I tried to sell my suit in a Jew hock shop but the best offer was five dollars, two short of the fare. I put the suit back into my luggage and shipped it to myself by express to San Francisco.
I then caught a car to Oregon City, where the freight trains slowed down enough to board one. It was hell to catch a car with only one hand, then climb to the top in order to hide and ride in the ice reefer. I was in the first reefer before I realized that another bum had followed me up the side of the car. When we were settled, he told me his name was Reynolds and that he had shipped out of Charleston, on a ship bound for Seattle and back. But the ship was sold, had been sold in Seattle to a Chinese company and was waiting for a Chinese crew. Meanwhile the American crew had been paid off. On his first night ashore in Seattle, Reynolds had been rolled for all his money in some gin mill, so here he was. The kid was only nineteen years old, a nephew of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds. I asked why he did not wire for money, and he told me that he would consider that quitting. I had to admire him for that, so when we reached Eugene, Oregon, I purchased some bread, bologna, a tomato, and a small jar of mayonnaise and we had a meal. That night we slept in a hobo jungle under a bridge.
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The next day we caught another freight, despite the Southern Pacific Railway Bulls (private policemen). We were on the Cascade Route ahd rode through twenty-one tunnels in those mountains - one night we pulled into a railroad yard prior to going through a tunnel at the highest elevation on the route. We met one of the engineers, a nice fellow who told us his engine was going to assist the train over the hump. He warned us to find a car in between the two engines because it would be very difficult to resist the carbon monoxide gas inside the tunnel if we were behind both engines. He also told us to wet our handkerchiefs and breathe through them if necessary. It was cold up there and I was glad I had brought my overcoat. Our friend the engineer invited us to sleep in the cab of his engine, which was nice and warm because they had to keep the engine ready with a head of steam. He awakened us when he received orders to hook up to our train. This gave us plenty of time to locate a reefer to make the trip over the hump and down to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where we spent another night and I also spent another couple of dollars on two good meals. Next day we crossed the California line; our next stop was Redding. From there we pulled into Marysville and on the fifth day our freight broke up in the Oakland yard. It was late afternoon. By this time I was broke, so I walked up to a railroader and asked him if he would lend me a dime so my buddy and I could ride the nickel ferry across the bay to San Francisco. He gave me a quarter, saying that I might have to make a phone call.
This proved to be the case. My old shipmate Butch Mongeaux had moved out to Frisco with his bride, and it took two nickels to get his phone number. Butch's wife, Alice, answered the phone, informing me that Butch was taking a bath and couldn't I call back. I told her my last nickel was in the pay phone. Butch came to the phone wet and I told him where I was. He promised to catch a car and meet me in an hour. To kill time I walked up Market Street with Reynolds, who had used one of my nickels to call a friend of his and was on the way to the Geary Hotel, in walking distance just off Market. We had walked about one block when I recognized an old shipmate, the second cook on the POINT MONTERA. I walked over toward him and he shook his head and moved on. I reached out and grasped his arm, exclaiming, "Bill
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