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There was what was called an Extra Gang there, employed upon shoveling gravel out of a hillside into dump-cars that took it away to fill in gulches under trestle bridges. The place, for those who like to know where one is on a map, was about half-way between Ashcroft and Kamloops on the main line of the C.P.R.

There and thus it was that I met Hank and Slim, the two queer men of this book—one of whom thought me queer. To those readers who may feel that I am relatively a ghost, a mere sketch, "blocked in" as painters say, and no more, I trust my explanation for that ghostliness is valid. It is of them—Hank and Slim—not of myself, I would write. You can meet the like of me any day, but you cannot so easily meet them. You have to do as I did, discard fine linen, take your home on your back like a snail, and go into the grim and beautiful world for that. I think it is in a way a duty of mine to record them. There is something documentary, I think, about this narrative of railroads in sand, and whiskey, and wild honeysuckle, and untamed wanderers.