swimming-holes—hunting in west texas—fishing in nueces river—jim conners—foreman betner—a runaway car.
about a mile above the cline mines there used to be a splendid swimming-hole, some 12 or 14 feet deep, with a sandy bottom, and a large flat rock on the bank to dress on. many an exciting game of catch and water polo we had there during my first year at the mines.
but i shall never forget my first swim in this hole. a week or so after i arrived, i asked where a man could get a swim, as the creek at the mines was shallow, with a muddy bottom. a young fellow offered to show me a good place, and, as no one else seemed to want to go, we started off together, and he took me to the hole i have mentioned. when we arrived, he “guessed” he would not go in, so i stripped and dived in by myself, while he sat on the rock and watched me. after i had been in some ten minutes he drawled out, “say! do you know why i and the other boys do not want to go in swimming?” “no,” i said.
“why?” “well,” he said, "we’re some scared of the alligators." i was out of the water in a flash, 105and then he began to laugh, and laughed all the way back to camp, where he told all the other boys, and they certainly had lots of fun at my expense. it turned out that there was not an alligator nearer than 100 miles of us.
but “water-moccassins” (a species of snake that lives in the water and is claimed to be poisonous) there are in plenty, though i never saw one bother anybody. they tell a story about a new york tourist in florida who wanted to go swimming. his guide took him to a pool where there were lots of moccassins. the northerner, in spite of his guide assuring him that they would not touch him, refused to go in, and demanded to be taken to some place where there were no snakes. the guide then took him over to a bayou, where there was not a snake to be seen. here the yank was satisfied, stripped, and went in for his swim. when he got out, he asked the guide if he could account for the fact that there were no snakes in the bayou when there were so many in the first pool. "how come there ain’t no snakes in hyah? why, the ’gators keeps them et up!" the guide replied.
later on the company built two large dams, with a capacity of about five million gallons each, one below and one above the camp. the upper dam then became our swimming-hole, as it was closer to the works, and 106on it we also used to sail canvas boats or canoes that some of us made. fish were very plentiful, mostly catfish, rock-bass, perch, and sunfish; though some years later i got black-bass from the government hatchery, and stocked the entire river with them.
this part of west texas is an ideal hunting country for small game. there are plenty of rabbits, both the cotton-tail and the jack-rabbit, or hare; quail in thousands, both the mexican and bob-white varieties, also at certain seasons of the year wild pigeon and duck of all kind abound; deer are plentiful of the “white-tail” variety, and a few “black-tail,” and these are increasing, owing to the new protection laws passed by the state, whereby the sale of game is practically prohibited. coyotes, javelines (the small wild boar), wild cat, fox, coons, and possum are plentiful in the lower part of the country, and up in the cedar brakes and hills in the northern part of the country there are still bear and panther to be found; these sometimes come down into the plains, one of the latter being shot about two miles below the mines, and on another occasion i saw two. of turkey there are still a few left, but they are very wild, wilder even than the coyote, which is saying a good deal.
the fishing on the nueces (nut) river, about nine miles from the mines, is very good, and the water is of 107crystal clearness; there i have caught bass up to 12 lbs., and alligator char up to 4 feet in length, and have seen others over 6 feet long. although these latte are no good for the table, they are well worth trying for, as they are one of the gamest freshwater fish i have ever hooked; they have given me splendid sport, much to the disgust of my camp partner, who could not see the sense of catching fish that were not good for the pot, and then throwing them back again. they are a species of pike, with a much longer mouth, like an alligator, hence the name. catfish also have been caught, weighing as much as 45 lbs., and a blue cat of that size will give a man all he can handle on a light rod.
our new foreman, betner, was a well-built man of about forty-five years of age, of the stamp known as “raw-hider” in the states, and his boast was that he could get more work out of a gang of men than any man he had met. he was of the stamp of the famous jim conners. conners was put as boss of a gang of rough longshoremen in buffalo; before he started work he decided to call his men altogether and give them a talk. when he had them all there he roared out, "now yez are to work for me, and i want every man to understand what’s what. what i sez goes, and whin i spake i want yez to jomp, for i kin lick 108any man in the gang!" there was silence for a minute, then one burly fellow stepped out and said, "you can’t lick me, jim conners." "i can’t, can’t i?" bellowed conners. "no, you can’t," was the reply. “oh, thin go to the office and get your money,” said conners, "fer i’ll have no man in me gang that i can’t lick." so it was with betner; he would not have any man in his gang who would not lick his boots.
his history will give some idea of the man himself, and also of what extraordinary chances some men get in this extraordinary country. betner started life as a bell-boy in a hotel that used to be the stopping-place of flagler, the great standard oil magnate, who tried later to build up florida. he was a good-looking lad, quick and cheerful, and flagler took an interest in him, and asked him one day if he would not like to quit the hotel and come and work for the standard. betner jumped at the chance, and flagler gave him a job, kept his eye on him, and pushed him along all he could stand. after some years, when betner was a grown man, he had charge of a small barrel repair shop for the standard. then flagler came forward with the capital and started betner in a cooper shop for himself, and at the same time gave him part of the standard’s contracts for barrels. he was clearing over $10,000 a year, when he 109got the idea that all his rise was solely due to his own wonderful business ability and efforts, and that he did not need mr. flagler any longer. he began drinking and gambling, and became a man about town—-all of which were mr. flagler’s pet aversions. he sent for betner and remonstrated with him, and was practically told to mind his own business. after this the end came quickly, as flagler broke him much quicker than he had raised him up. then our superintendent, who had also been a standard man before he came to us, and knew betner in those days, gave him a job, and brought him to the mines.
betner fell foul of me shortly after he arrived, and did his best to make things so unpleasant for me that i should quit; and this he kept up till the day he left, though he did not seem to have nerve enough to fire me. and i walked the chalk line as closely as i could, and tried to give him no opportunity. i found out later that the reason he was after my scalp was because he had got wind of the fact that i had been sent down by bole of new york, who was at that time president of the company, and he thought i was there as a spy on the rest of them. but in any case it came natural to him to rawhide all the men, as he had been accustomed to do in the east, where men will either stand it or quit. besides, he had been mostly handling submissive 110foreign emigrants, and now had a different class to deal with, and did not realise it. the southern boys will not stand it except from some one they look up to and respect or fear. there used to be a man named kipp kinney at the mines, who really was a genuine gunfighter. he had killed a man in uvalde some years before, and had lived in the hills till the affair blew over. he had been with the sheriff, pat garrett (the most noted sheriff in the south at that time), when they had to kill the notorious billy the kid, who had killed nineteen men by the time he was nineteen years old. one has seen pictures of the typical texas cow-boy, tall, ungainly, all bones apparently, with heavy eyebrows and a long drooping moustache. well, add to this pale grey eyes, deeply set, dark reddish-brown skin, with little hair-like veins close to the surface, and a pronounced roman nose, and you have kipp. kipp told me one day he was going to quit, and on my asking him why, said, "well, you know that man betner and i cannot just naturally get along. i guess he cannot help being as he is, but if i stay i shure’ll have to kill him, and i am getting too old to have any more trouble." betner was quite unaware of the risks he was taking with men of this stamp, for i proved later he had very little courage to back his bluffs.
111he never learned much spanish, but he had the mexicans scared to death of him, and they jumped when he spoke, whether they understood clearly what he wanted done or not. one day betner was raising a three-foot steel stack, forty feet long, up to its base on top of a boiler. he had it swung up on a block and tackle from a gin-pole, with three or four mexicans on each guy-wire holding it perpendicular. he had it almost ready to place and lower away, when he found he needed one more man to assist him at the foot of the stack. without turning round to indicate any particular man, he called out, in broken spanish, “one man come here quick.” mexicans of this class are natural born fools, and each poor frightened man thought that he must mean him individually, so let go his guy-wire and ran to betner. it is a wonder no one was squashed, as down came the stack and flattened out.
on one occasion himan the engineer wanted to lower three flat cars loaded with bridge-timbers down the track that led to the mine, a 2? per cent. grade. he put me on the first car ahead, took the last himself, and the axeman climbed on the middle one. when i slacked up my brake away we went, and in about 100 feet we were going fairly fast, so i jammed on my brake, and turned round in time to see the other two 112fellows jumping off. my brake had practically no effect on the speed, and they yelled to me to jump. but by the time i was ready we were close to the pit, and there were buildings so near the track on both sides, that i could not jump for fear of striking them. however, just as we passed the corner of the warehouse, there was a small clear space, and i jumped. as i picked myself up, i saw the last car going over the edge into the quarry. also there was mr. betner, who asked me what i meant by jumping off and letting the cars go. i told him that i had done all i could, but could not hold them. he said no one but a born fool would attempt to move cars on that grade (thinking that i had been the one to move them), and just then the engineer arrived on the scene. he asked betner if he were alluding to him, as he had ordered the cars moved, and then they had it out. it turned out that the middle car’s brake was broken, and that on the last car the chain had come unhooked from the rod when himan released it, so that my brake was the only one holding the three heavily loaded cars.
