“The last year of the high school with the job as the priest’s secretary to help out was a cinch. Everybody knew what a rough kid I had been and helped me along. That summer I made the longest jump of all. There are a lot of people in Duluth who are interested in copper mines in the southwest, and one of them offered me a job as timekeeper. That took me down into Arizona near the Mexican line. The office work kept me so busy that I did not have a chance to see anything, and the thought of being in that new country without seeing things was too much for me.
“I jumped the job at the end of the first month and struck down into Mexico. My greaser talk came in handy then. I finally picked up a job as timekeeper on a railroad construction crew. That was great, for they were just putting the finishing touches on a road, and moved fast. I saw lots of the country.
“I had one pretty strange experience there that scared me badly at the time. One of the engineers who was superintending the job was an American and a dandy fellow, but he was pretty sharp to those Mexicans; used to make them work harder than they liked. One day he kicked a fellow who refused to dig out a grade stake for him. The greaser did not do anything at the time, but when you insult one of those fellows you ought to kill him right there, for he’ll lay for you.
“That afternoon I was asleep on a flat car while the train was running around the side of a mountain to a new work station, when I heard someone jump down onto the flat from a box car. I opened one eye and saw that it was the greaser who had been kicked. He glanced at me, thought I was asleep, and started to climb onto the next box car behind. I didn’t think anything of it till I saw that he had a knife in his hand. That woke me up pretty quick for I knew how they fought. As soon as he was up the ladder I started up after him to see what was going on.
“When I peeped over the edge of that box car there was the greaser sneaking slowly up on the engineer, who was asleep on his back. There wasn’t any time to lose and I yelled like an Indian. I never saw anything so cool as that engineer. He opened his eyes with a jerk, rolled over once to dodge the knife, jumped to his feet, and knocked that greaser off the box car down the side of the mountain with one blow. He did not even look to see where he landed. He saw me staring over the edge of the box car with my eyes hanging out on my cheeks, and said, ‘Good boy, kid.’ With that he lay quietly down on his back again. I didn’t sleep for a week but it didn’t seem to bother him any, or anybody else. There was never anything said about it.”
“Didn’t the courts investigate it?” Scott asked in surprise.
“No, a greaser does not count there.
“When we finished the line we were away down in Southern Mexico; it was time for college to begin and no way to get back. I made my way across country to the nearest seaport and found a steamer just about to sail. A greaser there said she was bound for New Orleans, and I stowed myself away in the hold.
“It was stuffy in that old pit and I thought we would never get to New Orleans. My grub began to give out and I lived on half rations for four days and on nothing for two. I had just finished the last of my water, and had decided to try to get out when we docked and the hold was opened up. I managed to sneak out in the night and hid in the warehouse. I did not know much about what New Orleans looked like, but I did not think so many of the people there were Spaniards. Then I found out that it was Buenos Ayres instead of New Orleans. That pesky ship had been sailing the wrong way.”
“That was certainly a good one on you,” Scott laughed.