Born within months of one another in 1876, Jack London in January and Tilden Daken in June, the painter and the writer, both 25 at the time, hit it off straight away. The westbound train was scheduled to arrive the following morning. That night, in the Reno railyard, London taught Tilden his rules of the road, the precarious practice of clinging to the brake beams inches above the track, or in the hobo vernacular, “riding the rods.”