In the morning the guards marched us into a courtroom. The judge kept us waiting half an hour, to teach us respect for the law, then came shuffling in, black gown and all. The guards made us stand up. The judge sat down. We sat down. Justice moved swiftly. The drunks pleaded guilty—most of them Indians—and received their sentences on the spot. Which they had already served. When my turn came, I pleaded not guilty, creating a small sensation behind the bench. The judge and the clerk held a consultation; then the judge informed me that my trial was scheduled for December 10, about three and a half months hence, and that I would be confined in the city jail until that time unless I was prepared to post bond in the amount of fifty dollars. I said I didn’t have fifty dollars. He asked me how much I had. After a moment’s hesitation I said a dollar and forty cents, which was the amount the police had confiscated, along with my pocketknife, pack and bedroll, when they locked me up. The judge asked me if I was a draft dodger. I said no. He asked to see my draft card. I told him I was only seventeen and therefore not registered. He reduced the bail to one dollar and told me to get the hell out of Flagstaff and never come back.

The cops gave me back my possessions, including the balance of my apparent funds, the forty cents. One of them took me into a restaurant and bought me a good lunch and returned my dollar and then drove me to the eastern edge of town and dropped me by the highway. He warned me to stay off the trains because some of them carried military equipment and armed guards who were dying for an opportunity to shoot a potential saboteur. This seemed like good advice; during the day before, at Needles, I had noticed the tanks, trucks and artillery pieces chained to the flatbeds, although I had not seen any guards on the trains. I spent the remainder of the day hitchhiking, but got exactly nowhere. After sundown and supper I slunk into the forest, spread my sleeping bag under the pines and shivered through a second bitter night. Early in the morning I caught an eastbound freight, alone this time, pulling myself into another empty boxcar just as the train was beginning to roll out of the yards.

A magnificent day—warm, clear, brilliant with sunshine. All through the morning we rumbled, rattled and roared across the great plateau of northern Arizona, stopping now and then to let more important trains pass, but making good time all the same. Through the wide-open door of my side-door Pullman I saw for the first time in my life the high rangelands of the Navajos, the fringes of the Painted Desert, the faraway buttes and mesas of Hopi country. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of a hogan under a scrap of sandstone, a team and wagon hitched by the door, a couple of Indians sprawled in the shade of a juniper tree. It all looked good to me. And then we came to New Mexico.