While I was agent for the New York paint firm the company began to get into difficulties, but the first intimation we had of it was when the sheriff drove out one day and seized the property in the name of the bondholders. This threw us all out of our jobs, and the place was closed down. This was tough, as I was a shareholder, and my father was a bondholder; however, I got an offer of a few days’ surveying of some boundary lines for a man, but it turned out a poor job for me; for while I was away the court appointed watchmen, and I lost the chance of this. There were four watchmen appointed, one from Uvalde, and the other three were the superintendent, the foreman, and the shipping clerk I mentioned above. I certainly was disappointed when I got back and found out what I had missed. I had to send my wife and boy off to Vancouver, B.C., to her mother, and settled down to wait till the court proceedings were over. After a few weeks the shipping clerk got sick and I was put as night watchman in his place, which job I shared with Betner the foreman. He watched the far buildings on the hill and I watched the main buildings and the offices. At midnight I cooked supper and then whistled for him to come in and eat. He used to order me about more than I thought was justified in our present positions, so one night I “called his bluff” and told him I would have no more. The next morning Mr. Brown, the superintendent, sent for me and told me that I had been reported by Betner for reading on my watch instead of attending to my duties. We were entitled to an hour for supper, but it seldom took us over ten or fifteen minutes to eat. As soon as Betner was through he used to take a nap for the balance of the hour near the stove, and I used to read. I used to wake him when the hour was up and we went back to work. This was the reading he tried to make Mr. Brown believe I did all night. I explained this to Mr. Brown, and he said it was all right. This last straw put me in fighting trim, and that night I cooked my own supper and ate it, and when Betner came in I gave him my opinion of him in language he could understand. I told him also that in future he could cook his own meals, as I would have nothing further to do with him. But if he bothered me again I would beat him, and if he bluffed with his gun I would kill him. He then showed the stuff that was in him, for at first he blustered and finally crawled.
Some few months afterwards, when the receivership was done away with, Betner and Brown quarrelled, and Betner was dismissed. We were none of us sorry to see him go. It was a case like the bad man who was dying. A clergyman went to see if he could make him repent. He pictured the future in such glowing terms that he had the man convinced. At last he said, “Brother, are you not ready to go?” and the bad man replied, “Yes, I am very glad.” “Thank Heaven,” said the pastor, “because that makes it unanimous.” I don’t think, however, Betner was glad to go, though I can swear that the rest of us were unanimous.
The bondholders now took hold of the property, and we started up again and I sent for my family. The shipping clerk had left in the meantime, and I was appointed shipping and material clerk, and also had charge of the company’s commissary store, in which I had two assistants. A new foreman was brought in from San Antonio. He was known by the name of “Monte Jim,” having been at one time a professional gambler (Monte being a Mexican gambling game). How Mr. Brown ever came to hire him I don’t know, as the man was a crook of the worst kind. The first trouble I had with him was when I found out he was playing poker with one of my store boys, and that the latter in order to pay his debts was stealing from the store. I stopped this by firing the boy and warning Monte that he had to stop this business. Later we clashed again on the question of authority. Mr. Brown had told me that in the commissary and material storeroom I was supreme, and laid down certain hours during which they were to be open. Monte disputed my authority one day, and ordered me to close the store and open the storeroom for him out of hours; we had an argument, and I ran him out of the store, and after this we had no more trouble. He was, I knew, taking rebates from the men (that is, the men paid him part of their pay to be easy on them). I was not hunting trouble, however, so kept my knowledge to myself, especially as it would have been practically impossible to prove a case against him. The men would naturally all have sworn that it was not so, if inquiry had been made. He was also, I heard, bringing liquor into the place and selling it to the men, besides increasing his income playing poker. One day he came to me and asked me to lend him my pistol, as he was going to town in company with the pit-foreman, the latter’s daughter, and the pumper; and was taking in a good deal of money to the bank. I refused to lend my gun (as I did not want it confiscated in case of trouble), but lent him a 44 rifle carbine, which would serve better to protect the cash but could hardly be carried round town for trouble purposes—at least so I then thought. I did not like the idea of the girl going, as the men were all hard drinkers, and her father I knew had already killed two men. He had got into a fight with them in a saloon, and one of them had knocked him down. As he fell he drew his gun and killed them both, getting off, of course, on the ground of self-defence. However, I could not say anything, and anyway it was none of my business, so off they started. In the evening the girl walked past the office by herself. I asked her where her father, Monte, and the pumper were. She told me her father had driven round by the back gate, so she had got out and cut across; that the pumper had fallen out of the wagon about half a mile back; and Monte was riding in by himself on horseback.
I went out to see about the pumper, and on my way passed the pit-foreman in the wagon trying to drive the team across the pit, and the unhappy owner of the wagon running like mad to save his team from destruction!
The pumper I found sleeping in a sage brush where he had fallen, and had him brought in. After a while, Monte came in and I got my rifle away from him. It seemed that they had quarrelled in town, and that the pit-boss, his daughter, and the pumper had driven off in the wagon, leaving Monte to walk. The latter had hired a horse and started in pursuit; when he came in sight of the wagon he started shooting with my rifle to stop them. On this the pit-boss said he would go back and kill him. But as he was getting out of the wagon his daughter slipped his pistol out of the holster. Luckily for the unarmed pit-boss, Monte did not await his arrival, but rode off when he saw him climb out of the wagon. The rest of them came on home, but as they were rounding a corner the pumper, who had stood up to make a speech (on the evils of drink, I presume), fell out, and slept peacefully till I rescued him. This escapade was the end of Monte Jim and the others, and I was put in charge of the works as foreman, still retaining my other jobs.
CHAPTER XIX
Promoted to Foreman—Overwork and Eyestrain—Mexican Traits—Amateur Doctor—A rival Asphalt Company—Its Failure.
I had plenty to attend to when I was promoted to be foreman, but was so pleased that I tried to do the whole job by myself; I succeeded for some three or four months, nearly breaking myself down in the attempt, and later found out that I got no thanks from the company either. I used to be at the office at 6.30 each morning to lay out the day’s work and to issue time checks to the men who were to go to work. During the day I was over the plant and in the pit on practically continuous rounds, and between times I was in the office attending to my correspondence, making out reports for the head office, and posting my books, as I had no office help at all. At 6 P.M., when the day-shift came off duty, I opened up the commissary, and with the help of a Mexican assistant I issued to the men the food, &c., they wished to buy. This generally took till 7.30 P.M., then to supper, and back to the office with a round or two over the works to see what the night-shift were doing; and then to bed at 10.30, sometimes midnight. Finally my eyes gave out from doing so much office work under an electric light, and I practically broke down from overwork. A man can stand long hours for a short time; I myself have often stood thirty-six and forty-eight hour shifts in the extractor house, two such shifts in one week but with a rest between; it is the long, steady grind that wears one out. I had to get leave and go into San Antonio to see an oculist, who gave me glasses and fixed me up so that I could return to work, but under orders to do no reading or writing at night for some months. The name of the eye trouble I was suffering from I have forgotten, but it was not the same as that of the man I heard of who, when the oculist had fitted on a number of different glasses said, in reply to the question as to how he could see with the last pair, “Well, the green giraffe I can shee firsh rate, but the red elephant and the purple trantula still look kinder—kinder blurred.” I wrote to the company that I either must have assistance, or an immediate rise of salary to warrant doing the work and taking chances. They replied that the salary I was receiving was all that the position I held was worth, but they sent me a man to take charge of the commissary, and let me get a book-keeper to do the office work, so that I had little night work to do.
I was practically the law and the prophets among the Mexicans at the mines, and they soon learned that I would carry out anything I said. Of course they had to prove this by a course of experiments, for the Mexicans hate to take anything for granted. I remember, once, two of them having an argument in the pit as to whether an electric fulminate cap could be exploded by a blow or only by the electric spark, one of them must needs experiment by striking the cap with a stone; it took him the rest of the day to get the pieces of stone out of his hand. I had issued an order that any man coming drunk on to the work would be discharged, and my best “hand driller” tried the experiment and went herding goats for a change. So things went on till they were convinced. This confidence that I could and would do what I said got me out of a hole once. There was a young Mexican at the mines who had been ill-treating his wife, and finally one evening he decided to kill her. She managed to escape from him, and ran over to the house of the head fireman, whose wife gave her shelter, the fireman himself turning out and running the husband off with a rifle. I heard about it the next morning, and that the husband was still full of threats. So I sent for him, his wife, and the fireman, and held court. The wife refused to return to the husband, as she said he would certainly kill her, and the fireman and his wife also refused to give her up. The husband of course denied all the charges, and said he could not return to Mexico without his wife, as suspicion would be aroused. I was in a quandary, for I knew that unless I could get the young fellow away either he or the fireman would get killed, and I could not afford to lose the fireman. Finally I gave the young fellow the alternative of either leaving the place at once, and leaving his wife in the care of the fireman and his wife, or I would take him into town and turn him over to the sheriff. It did not take him long to make up his mind that he did not want to make the acquaintance of the sheriff, and so he skipped out. The story somehow leaked out, and the next time I met Henry Burns the sheriff he joked me unmercifully about my divorce court. On another occasion an old woman, who ran a sort of restaurant for the bachelor Mexicans at the mines, came rushing to the office to tell me that two drunken Mexicans had run her out and were tearing her house to pieces; then just as I started off she warned me to be careful, as they both had pistols.
I went over to Mexico (as we called the Mexican part of the camp), and as I approached the old woman’s house, I saw the two men standing outside the door, but as soon as they saw me they went inside. It scared me for a minute, for I expected they would take a shot at me from some crack or other, but, just as I reached the door, they both stepped out again. I then searched them and found neither of them armed, and they denied that they had done anything or bothered the old woman, though they were both pretty drunk, so I let them go, thinking the old hen had lied. Then as I started to go back to the office I thought I would take a look in the house and see if any damage had been done, and there in a corner lay the two pistols. I had no real authority either to make arrests or even carry a pistol, as I was not a deputy-sheriff, nor could I be made one, as I was not an American citizen; but Henry Burns had told me to carry a gun and try and keep the peace unofficially, which I did to the best of my ability. Once a Mexican came running to tell me that a man and a woman were lying dead on the road from the mines to Uvalde, about half a mile from the mine. I hurried over and found the woman sure enough dead, shot through the heart from behind, but the man was still alive, though a horrible sight to see. I used to keep a medicine chest and plenty of lint and bandages, as, having no doctor nearer than eighteen miles, I used to attend to all hurts, and even prescribed remedies in simple cases, till my wife protested at the string of sick babies that used to be brought up for my inspection. As was proved at the subsequent trial, the man had killed the woman and then attempted suicide. He had stuck his Winchester under his chin and kicked the trigger. The bullet broke his jawbone and came out over his right eye. I washed out the wound and tied his face back into place, and just then Henry Burns arrived on the scene and I turned the whole business over to him. He was on his way over to the mines about another case. They carted the Mexican over to his house and put a guard over him; just as they were laying him on the bed he mumbled something, turned over, and pulled a pistol out of the back of his waistband, that was hurting him as he lay. Henry laughed at me for not searching my prisoner. The man was a poor half-witted chopper working for our firewood contractor. He got a ten-year sentence, and died later in the penitentiary.