Trouble at the Dance—A New Superintendent—Shots in the dark—Arrest of Bud—With a Surveying Party.

I was absorbed in the beauty and strangeness of the scene when suddenly the peacefulness was broken by the “bang-bang” of a pistol, almost in our ears. Everybody jumped, but it was only a young Mexican, who had been “turned down” by his girl, and, having loaded up on mescal, was amusing himself by trying to stampede the crowd. Unfortunately, however, there were other young fellows in the crowd, back of the benches, who, happening to be in the same predicament, decided to assist him, and soon there was “bang-banging” all around the outer circle.

There was a Mexican deputy-sheriff on the ground to keep order, who, when things were getting pretty lively, got up on a stump and made a short speech.

He begged the young fellows to keep quiet, as things had gone as far as decency would permit, and said he would have to arrest the next man who fired a gun. While he was speaking a young Mexican, with more mescal than brains in his head, crept up behind him 97and fired off his pistol almost in his ear. The deputy turned like a flash, and before the young fellow could use his gun again he dived under his extended arm, caught him by the throat and wrist, pinned him to the ground and took his gun away from him. The minute the deputy had his prisoner down half a dozen young Mexicans ran up to rescue him, but the host and the deputy’s two half-brothers ran to his assistance, and for a minute or two things looked bad. I beat a hasty retreat behind a convenient oak-tree from whence I could observe progress in safety. There was a young German lad at the mines who stood over six feet, and weighed close on 200 lbs., and was “Muy bravo” with his fists. Just as I reached the shelter of my friendly tree he came dashing by me, saying, “Let me in to this! Let me in!” as if I were trying to keep him out. As he ran up to the crowd some one stuck a "Colt’s Frontier 45" under his nose, and he literally fell out backwards.

The determined attitude of the deputy and his friends stopped the trouble, though the dance was broken up. But as the crowd was moving away and the deputy was taking off his prisoner, Padilla, one of his half-brothers, gave a yell and clapped his hands to his stomach. Some one had taken his revenge, as Padilla had a cut which extended from his left hip 98almost to his right lower ribs, done from behind; the man who did it was never discovered. They carried him back to camp, and within a month he was back at his old job, running the car-hoist out of the mine.

Of course this kind of business was not conducive to good work, and so, in May 1895, a little more than a month after I started work, the new superintendent arrived, bringing with him a new foreman and a shipping clerk. The new superintendent was exactly the opposite of the colonel. He was a short, heavily built Northerner, born in Nantucket. “Details,” so repugnant to the colonel, were just what he was after, and he did not take kindly to drinking and dance halls on the company’s property. He put a stop to the dance hall, and no liquor of any kind was allowed on the company’s land, which comprised 27,000 acres. He caused the sheriff of Uvalde County to appoint him as deputy, so that he could enforce his own orders, and the place began to quiet down.

As the company had no house to give me, I got funds from home to build a three-roomed house. I bought some furniture from the company, and sending for my wife and boy we started housekeeping in a small way. Meanwhile I had been changed from the crusher to fireman on the three stationary boilers. 99It was promotion in so far as it was considered to need more skill, but it only carried with it harder work and no higher pay. It was terrible work during the months of June, July, and part of August, under a Texas sun, firing three 80 H.P. boilers with mesquite wood. There was no cover over the boilers, and the fireman stood out in the open with the heat of the sun on his back, and the heat of the fires in his face whenever he opened a fire-door to put in wood. Here I first found out what was meant by the saying, “A man does not know what heat is till he shivers from it.” I had always thought this a foolish thing until I found out that a man can actually get so heated that he has cold chills run over him till he shivers. The only relief we could get was to go under the water-tank between times, while the steam held, and then before starting out douse our heads under the tap. I had two Mexican assistants to wheel wood from the pile to the boiler, and to wheel away the ashes. The reason there was no shed over the boilers was simply bad management and bad plans; later on all this was changed.

One night in July my wife, the boy, and I were sitting out on the front porch of ............