The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1899-08-17
cab with you

| course. IL was not my business 10 run
too slowly. i wanted to show the al
calde that stopping in the space de-
scribed was an impossibility. Old SO
was a quick engine, and inside of two
miles, it being a down grade, we were
doing a two-minute clip. We struck
the curve at 40 miles an hour. The al
calde had never in his life been on a
train, and he was leaning out of the cab
window waving his big straw hat and
shouting Viva. Viva! AZ we sighted
the spot where Vicente had been pull
verified the air brakes went on with a
clamp of death. l was thrown to the
floor of the cab myself. AS for the al
calde, he shot through the window like
a rocket, turned six somersaults and
ut on his back in the sand 30 feet
away. The train ground to stand
still yards beyond the blood-stained
ties. He came limping up, brushing
the sand out of his white hair. | re-
member that his mustache was all
bent down on one side. He looked up
at me and said, simply: 'Valga me
|
'Dern my buttons!' We went back to
town; he discharged us all and invited
us to dinner with him. We stayed and
pulled out that evening. Everybody
ran pretty much ON his own schedule in
| them times"
The conductor took up the running:
Twelve years ago in San Luis Potosi
they were building a city hall that they
said would be the eighth wonder of the
world. There was no skilled labor of
the kind they wanted so they import
ed 20 stone masons from Pennsylvania
al big wages. These men were needed
to make the ornamental facades, carv-
ings and gingerbread work generally.
Everything went along all right until
the 9Th of May, which is the Mexican
Fourth of July. No work was done on
that day. and the masons wandered
about the town and drank good deal.
In the afternoon one of them, named
Morgan, found himself in little can
tina. To him came big. black. drunk
en- Mexican, who laid his chin on the
Americans shoulder and yelled:
'Niya-a-a-a el cinco de Mayo! -.
"'T'ell with you!' said Morgan. shov-
ing him off and shifting him migA1ily
on the nose. ''Rah for the Fourth of
JULY
"The Mexican picked himself up@l
dozen feet away and came for his man
with knife foot long. Morgan, cold
J drunk and savage, shot him before he
had taken two steps. That closed the
deal. Morgan went to Jail in the mid
die of clump of soldiers. The other
masons heard of it, rose like flock of
quail and lit running. Some caught
passing freight trains, some decamped
on borrowed mules, some took to the
mountains and eventually worked their
way back TO the states. Morgan was
tried next day and sentenced to be
shot. Before his execution it occurred
to the authorities, however, that if they
killed him they would have no one
| to finish their wonderful hall. So they
| gave him a suspension of sentence un-
till he did all the carving. The walls of
this building had been put up before
the masons came. So every day, in
summer shine and winter storm, Nor
| gan. suspended on platform a hun
| dred feet above the street, Clipped
away at gargoyles and griffins and
! things like that while a file of soldiers
loafed below. He took his time, you
can bet. Fast work meant soon death
to him. He put in six months on fat
angel three feet long, blowing horn.
| He had 'em foul and used to make em
treat him pretty white. Sometimes he
would strike work for awhile and pelt
the soldiers with stone clippings, and
| they didn't dare to shoot him. After
| three years Of this the authorities, who
saw that their hall would not be fin
| ished before the end of the next cen
tury, told him that if he would get
! other workmen to help him they would
! let him off altogether. He wrote to
his brother, who was maker of grave
stone marbles in Pittsburgh, and he
so worked on the local union that a
lot of the men agreed to go down to
/ San Luis. They had an easy enough
time after they got there. Indeed. the
! governor of Potosi state gave orders
/ that they were to be treated tenderly.
He was afraid that they might run
away and further delay the hall. They
| got $50 day in Mexican money and
good barracks. Morgan watched his
chance and skipped one night. The
/ others stayed on, and l guess the hal
is finished by now"
"Thcy still do funny things in that
country" said another of the engi-
neers. Nearly all of the railway build
/ ing is now south of the capital, oyer
| toward the Pacific coast. In that part
| of the world conductors of construction
/ trains are still putting away $500 a
I month hauling freight and passengers
/ on their own hook. Last winter there
\ was an Irishman named Doyle. boss
! of camp of tie-cutters not far from
1 Tehuantepec. A hundred men got their
I grub and bedding in that camp, anG
/ one of the three cooks was Chinaman.
I This Chinaman got a black sickness
( of some kind. 1t was one of the many
+ fevers pf the aQnst cnl1pfry and IL