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.

A rival asphalt company started to open up another deposit two miles below our mine, and began to haul their product to the Cline station through our land. Under orders from the head office I went out, took down all gates, and fenced all roads up solid, so that they could not haul through the company’s pasture.

The law in the State of Texas makes it a felony to cut a man’s pasture fence, and the punishment is up to five years in the penitentiary. A couple of days after I had fixed the fences the station agent at Cline telephoned me that the wagons were up there again unloading. I got on my horse, and soon found where they had torn down the fence and come through. I wired the sheriff to send me out a deputy at once, and on his arrival went out with him and a gang of men, rebuilt the fence, and the lot of us sat down to await results. Soon the wagons arrived, and on the first one sat the president of the rival company and his lawyer. The former, whom I knew, called out to me and asked me why I had built the fences so strong, as it only gave his men unnecessary trouble. The deputy then warned him that he was breaking the law in touching the fence, but he gave his men orders to pull it down, and they came on through. I wanted the deputy to arrest him, and I and my men would help, but he refused, for fear, as he said, of trouble; but his real reason, I found out later, was that his orders from Henry Burns were not to make any arrests. The case came up for trial, and Henry Bums turned us down, getting an unfriendly jury who threw the case out of court. He had been bought by the opposition, and this was the main ground on which I fought him later at elections. We got an injunction in the federal court, prohibiting them from crossing our grounds, and they had to haul to Uvalde, twenty miles, instead of Cline, eight miles. The whole thing, however, had been a bluff, as their deposit was worthless, and they were simply trying to scare us into selling our product at a low price to them. Their bluff not working, they finally had to buy material from us at our own price, as they had a large paving contract to fill and nothing to fill it with. The way these bluffs are worked in some of the States, regardless of law, is simply astounding.