The others were penniless and had to win their breakfasts in some way or continue to starve. They were all comfortably clothed. The Swede's suit seemed a particularly good one, but in the approaching daylight it was discovered that, while lying too near the fire, he had burned out one side of his coat and one trouser leg. Noticing this he remarked, "Well, boys I must sneak out of town unseen, in a hurry, for if the police see me now they will arrest me without question." He and others expressed a fear that I also felt all through that awful night--the fear of the Memphis police. I decided to postpone my study of the government works. A week later I met one of the "pals." He told me the food down on the government works was good, for coarse food, and there was plenty of it, but the sleeping accommodations were extremely bad. "I would have stayed," he said, "although the work was such that I wore out clothes faster than my wages would replace them, but the water made me ill. Then, too, I saw a man drowned. After that I didn't care to stay." Explaining the tragedy, he said, "You see it was this way. We were working with the willows from a barge in the river. The boy lost his balance and fell into the stream. The treacherous current instantly swept him from the barge. He tried to swim back. God! I never saw such a trial of strength for life. With the strong Indian overstroke, the muscles stood out on his arms and neck like cords of rope, wrought to such a tension it seemed as if the slightest blow would have snapped them like glass. But the look of anguish on his face! If I could only forget that! Almost exhausted, and seeing that his efforts to reach the barge were in vain, he turned to swim down stream and toward the shore, but a whirlpool caught him. For an instant he raised his calloused hands above his head, and then--all was over. No sooner had he disappeared than the boss demanded, with a violent oath, 'Bring on the willows.'" "Were there no means of rescue provided for such an emergency?" I asked in horror. His answer was nothing but the mention of the existence of so much red tape that a boat could not be provided which might possibly have saved that young man's life. The man was so visibly affected while relating the incident that I was led to inquire the cause. He replied, as he abruptly left me, "He was our pal that night in the jungles--my pal." After hearing of this tragedy, I definitely decided not to go at all to the government works.