The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1899-08-18

miles, 1t 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!' AS we sighted
the spot where Vicente had been pull
verified the air brakes went on with a
clamp of death. | was thrown to the
floor of the cab myself. AS for the al
calde, he shot through the window like
rocket, turned six somersaults and
lit on his back in the sand 80 feet
away. The train ground to a 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
Dios! which is about equivalent to
'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.
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
at big wages. These men were needed
to make the ornamental facades, carv-
ings and gingerbread work generally.
Everything went along all right until
the 5th 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 a 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:
"'Viva-a-a-a ell cinco de Mayo!'
"'T'ell with you'll said Morgan, SHOW
ing him off and shifting him nightly
on the nose. ''Rah for the Fourth of
July!'
''The Mexican picked himself up a
dozen feet away and came for his man
with knife foot long. Morgan, cold
drunk and savage, shot him before he
had taken two steps. That closed the
deal. Morgan went to Jail in the mid
die of a 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 I'M
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 a platform hun
dred feet above the street, Clipped
away at gargoyles and griffins and
things like that while 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 a 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
fury, 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 a 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 $40 day in Mexican money and
good barracks. Morgan watched his
chance and skipped one night. The
others stayed on, and I guess the hall
is finished by now"
"They 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, over
toward the Pacific coast. In that part
of the world conductors of construction
trains are still putting away $500 a
month hauling freight and passengers
on their own hook. Last winter there
was an Irishman named Doyle, boss
of a camp of tie-cutters not far from
Tehuantepec. A hundred men got their
grub and bedding in that camp, and
one of the three cooks was Chinaman.
This Chinaman got a black sickness
of some kind. 1t was one of the many
fevers of the coast country, and it
meant death to him. Doyle was afraid
it was catching. He had big con-
tract on and good labor was hard to
get. He didn't want his men to die.
The Chinaman laid down on the outer
edge of the camp for two days, wrapped
in his blanket, shivering and burning
by turns. No doctor was nearer than so
miles. On the third day, when all the
aXmen were out in the woods, Doyle
went to the Chinaman and stopped