A "Periodical"—Italian treachery—Bitumen extractors—The Mexican
disregard for orders—In charge of the stills—A vote canvasser.
Henry Burns had once to arrest a man who was a “periodical.” He would
not touch a drink for weeks, even months, at a time, then he would go on
an awful spree, paint the town red, and end by shooting up the saloon.
After one of these strenuous sprees, Henry told him that he had reached
the limit, and that he would be arrested the next time he caused any
trouble. A month later the man went on another spree and started in to
enliven the town. After a while he heard that Henry was after him, so he
went over to his office in the Court House (he was county clerk) and
locked himself in, sending word to Henry not to disturb him or he would
shoot him. Henry picked up two or three deputies and went to make the
arrest. When they reached the locked door Henry made his deputies stand
on either side, while he broke it down. “Now,” he said, “boys, I will go
in alone and try to arrest him quietly; but, if he shoots me, take no
chances, but kill him.” As he broke in the door, the man, who sat behind
his desk with a shot-gun resting on it and pointing at the door, called
out, “Henry, I will have to kill you if you come in.” Henry did not even
draw his pistol, but walked quietly up to the desk and took the gun
away. The man’s nerve failed at the last minute, and, as Henry laid his
hand on the gun, he turned and jumped out of the window, with Henry
after him. The drop was slight, with grass below, and he was arrested
and put in jail. A month or so later he was again arrested and locked
up, got into a fight with another prisoner, and was killed by the
latter. His son ever after claimed that Henry had hired the man to kill
him, which was manifestly absurd.
Texans, as a rule, will give a man a fair fight and some chance for his
life, but all the men at the mines were not Texans, not even Americans.
There were two Italians from New York, expert mastic-makers, who were
sent down by the company to instal a mastic plant. One of them had
trouble with the foreman and laid a trap for him. On the third storey of
the mastic-house there was a balcony exactly over the main entrance.
Here the Italian took his stand, leaning on the rail, and at his feet a
piece of plank. When the foreman passed underneath, he timed things very
nicely, tipped the plank over the edge with his foot as he turned, and
went into the building, not stopping to see the result. Fortunately,
some one saw the whole performance and yelled. The foreman ducked, and
the plank struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Of course it was
“an accident”; but both Italians were discharged at once.
The branch railroad on which I was employed being completed, I was put
in the extractor house as apprentice to learn the work. After the rock
is crushed to about two inches in diameter, it is put into large
steam-jacketed extractors holding five tons each. The top is sealed down
and naphtha pumped in on the rock till the extractors are full; then
steam is turned into the jacket, and the hot naphtha extracts all the
bitumen from the rock. After a while the asphalt-laden naphtha is drawn
off; the rock is then washed with fresh naphtha, which, in turn, is
drawn off. The live steam is turned in on the rock and drawn off through
condensers, carrying with it the last of the naphtha. The condensed
steam and naphtha are run through a settler having two pipes, one at the
top to carry off the naphtha to its tank, and one at the bottom for the
water. Two or three days after I started in the extractor house the man
in charge let the water run too low, and thus some naphtha got out
through the water-pipe into the creek, for which he was discharged. I
was then put in charge, and though I hardly knew anything about the
business, I dared not let the opportunity for advancement slip by me.
There were five of these extractors and two pumps to look after, and it
kept me on the move. The second or third day one of the pumps went on
strike, and I had to take it down and get it working again. When I got
through I went my rounds, and found to my horror that I also had let the
water get too low in one of the settlers. Here was an opportunity to get
rid of me, and I very soon got my “time.” Then Providence took a hand in
my behalf, for my predecessor had left the camp and the day man got
sick. The night man took one of his shifts, and then tried to take his
own, but gave out; and so at 12 P.M. the foreman came and woke me up to
go back again. We had the naphtha stored in overhead tanks, and the
orders were most strict against smoking or carrying matches near the
works; yet one day we caught one of the extractor loaders sitting on top
of the overhead naphtha tanks smoking a cigarette, endangering not only
his own life but that of every man on the place.
It seems natural to Mexicans to disobey orders if they think there is
the bare chance of their not getting caught; and the more danger there
is the more they seem to like it. There used to be a standing order that
no one was to ride on the ore cars that ran on the incline down into the
pit. One day while I was still working on the crusher I saw a rather
amusing thing occur through a man disobeying this order. One of the
Padillas, brother of the hoister man, was riding the car down to the
pit, when his brother, thinking to have some fun with him, slipped the
clutch, and let the car go at a tremendous pace. When, however, it
neared the switch at the bottom of the incline, where the cars branched
off to the different parts of the pit, the hoister man got scared and
lost his head; instead of gently slipping the clutch in, he jammed it
down hard and stopped the car dead, standing his brother on his head in
the car. Talking of car accidents, another happened a couple of years
later, when we had enlarged the plant and built a new extractor house up
on the hill. To get the crushed rock up to this house we built a double
track incline 900 feet long, with a rise of about 70 feet. The ore bin
was set up over these tracks, and behind the bin was a platform on
struts, on which was placed a double drum hoisting engine. One day I had
just come out of the pit when I heard some one shout, and, looking up, I
saw that the cable had parted and the car with two tons of rock in it
had started down the incline from near the top. I shouted to the
hoisting man to get down out of the way, but he seemed fascinated by
that car, and stood there with his mouth open watching it come. By the
time it reached the bottom it was going like an express train, and the
way it took the struts out from under the engineer’s platform was a
sight to see. Down came the engineer, but he was up and dusting himself
by the time I reached him; and all he said was, “H—l! she was sure
travelling!”
I was working with Himan, the civil engineer, when we built this
incline. We built the bents on the ground, marked a centre, then hoisted
them upright, and while Mexicans held it steady with guy-ropes, I
climbed on top and gave Himan a “sight” with a pencil, while the men
moved it on the mud-sill, with bars, one way or another as he directed.
I did not relish the job, as I had a very poor head for working on
heights, and had little faith in the men on the guy-ropes. Himan used to
laugh at me, but one day we were up in the extractor house and he walked
out on a 2-inch by 12-inch plank that was laid out to the first bent. A
2-inch plank over a 15-foot span bends considerably under a man.
However, he got out all right on the bent, and, after looking at the
placing of some sheave wheels, he started back. He had already begun to
get giddy, and, when he stepped on the plank and it bent, he lost his
nerve so much that in spite of my laughing at him he crawled in on his
hands and knees. After the incline was completed, we put up a 4-inch by
12-inch plank “run-way” the whole length between the tracks for the men
to go up and oil the sheaves. Working on heights is all a matter of
practice, and few men can do it the first time, though of course there
are exceptions. Once when shingling a very steep roof I worked the first
two days sitting in a sling and expecting every few minutes to fall off;
but after a while, with three or four pair of heavy woollen socks to
keep me from slipping, I was running all over the same roof and never
thought of falling. I have won many bets from cow-punchers who came to
the mine that they could not run up the 900-foot incline in two minutes.
They would start away at racing gait, then, as the incline left the
ground, they would slow down to a walk, and finally they could be seen
carefully placing one foot in front of the other, till generally they
gave up and came back. As one fellow said, “Down here that plank is wide
enough for me to ride my horse on, but up there it is like walking a
tight-rope.”
After some time in the extractor house I was given charge of the stills,
where the naphtha was driven off, cooled, and returned to its tank, and
the pure bitumen left, which was run into barrels. A short while after I
got this move, a firm in New York contracted to take our entire output
to make into paint and varnish. They were looking for a local agent, and
I got the position. I had to see that all the output was up to a certain
grade, and when stored in the warehouse or shipped I gave receipts for
it on which the company got their money. One day when I was at work a
man came out to the warehouse, got into conversation, and after a while
offered me a cigar. I told him I could not smoke there, but he insisted
on my taking it anyway and smoking it later. He and I had quite a chat,
and after a long while he finally drew a card out of his pocket and
asked for my vote, as he was running for some county office. The look of
disgust that spread over his face when I informed him that I was a
British subject and had no vote was truly ludicrous, as he thought of
his wasted time and cigar. On railway journeys sometimes this canvassing
is a nuisance; moreover, the excuse that you are a Britisher is not
always cordially accepted. I said in an early part of these
reminiscences that I had been roasted by Americans for many years, and
now had a chance when they could not reply to me of getting back a
little. But it is a fact that among a certain class of people in the
States that the instant they find you are English they immediately drop
all other topics of conversation to refer to the time “we licked you
badly,” or to discuss the degeneracy of the House of Lords, or some
other topic which they think will be of interest to you. At first I used
to get very angry and try to argue with them, but later I gave this up,
and found the only position to take was one of superiority, and say in
so many words, “How can people be so ignorant of facts, so dense as to
talk such utter rot? Yet they look intelligent.”