A "Grandstander"—The Sheriff takes possession—Night Watchman—Monte Jim—Further trouble.

Besides Henry Burns, the sheriff, there was also another man whose re-election I opposed. He was the city marshal of Uvalde, and a regular “grandstander,” as they call a man who is always striking poses. The young man before mentioned as having caused so much trouble on my first fishing trip, got drunk and disorderly once in Uvalde, and some one told the city marshal. Instead of quietly arresting the young fellow, he walked up pompously, drew his pistol, and sticking it in Jim’s face arrested him in the name of the State. To his astonishment Jim made a snatch and took the gun away before the marshal was quite through posing, which was manifestly taking a mean advantage of him. Then Jim said, "Run, you coyote, or I’ll kill you," and run the marshal did, with Jim after him; and at every jump he would shout "Don’t shoot, Jim." Finally Jim tired and let him go, and the marshal never had the nerve to lay any complaint. So at the next election we ran him out.

149While I was working on the branch railway to the mine, there was a gang of nine men putting up small bridges and culverts. All the members of this gang were relations, except one man, and he was made the butt of all the jokes and horseplay; and some of them were pretty rough. Finally one day the worm turned and said to his tormentors that he had stood all he was going to stand, then walked off towards their camp, about two miles away. They passed it off with a laugh, thinking they could smooth him down in the evening when they returned to camp. But to their astonishment he turned up again, in about an hour, armed with a shot-gun, and aiming it at his principal tormentor he told him he would give him a minute to say anything he wished to, or to pray if he so desired. The bridgeman told him, at the end of the time, to go ahead and shoot if he intended to, as he was ready. The man stood for a minute hesitating, then turned and walked down to the mines. I had rather liked the fellow, and felt sorry for him, and when I heard of the trouble I went and had a talk with him before he left. I asked him why he had walked four miles for a gun and then not used it. He said, “I intended to kill him up to the last second, and then to wipe out as many of the rest of them as I could. But I could not shoot him while 150he stood still. If he had come at me, or run away, or if any of the others had moved, I should have fired, but I could not as things were.”

About this time there occurred a rather amusing shooting case in Uvalde. Our head book-keeper was a Texan, the shipping clerk was a New Yorker. They went to town together to celebrate. When they were both half drunk, the Texan asked the other if he had a gun, and on his replying “No” he seemed much shocked, and said he would borrow one for him. This he proceeded to do from a bar-keeper, and handed it to Tom the New Yorker, who, however, was too drunk to put it away in his pocket, and for the rest of the time carried it in his hand. After a few more drinks they got into some argument on the street, and the next minute the Texan was emptying his gun at Tom. The latter was so far gone that he had actually forgotten the gun in his hand, and never used it at all; in fact, he did not know that the Texan was firing at him at all—so he said the next morning in court. Luckily no one was hit, but the book-keeper was fined fifty dollars for “shooting in the city limits.”

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 151the 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 152to 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 ............