Of course this kind of business was not conducive to good work, and so, in May 1895, a little more than a month after I started work, the new superintendent arrived, bringing with him a new foreman and a shipping clerk. The new superintendent was exactly the opposite of the colonel. He was a short, heavily built Northerner, born in Nantucket. “Details,” so repugnant to the colonel, were just what he was after, and he did not take kindly to drinking and dance halls on the company’s property. He put a stop to the dance hall, and no liquor of any kind was allowed on the company’s land, which comprised 27,000 acres. He caused the sheriff of Uvalde County to appoint him as deputy, so that he could enforce his own orders, and the place began to quiet down. As the company had no house to give me, I got funds from home to build a three-roomed house. I bought some furniture from the company, and sending for my wife and boy we started housekeeping in a small way. Meanwhile I had been changed from the crusher to fireman on the three stationary boilers. It was promotion in so far as it was considered to need more skill, but it only carried with it harder work and no higher pay. It was terrible work during the months of June, July, and part of August, under a Texas sun, firing three 80 H.P. boilers with mesquite wood. There was no cover over the boilers, and the fireman stood out in the open with the heat of the sun on his back, and the heat of the fires in his face whenever he opened a fire-door to put in wood. Here I first found out what was meant by the saying, “A man does not know what heat is till he shivers from it.” I had always thought this a foolish thing until I found out that a man can actually get so heated that he has cold chills run over him till he shivers. The only relief we could get was to go under the water-tank between times, while the steam held, and then before starting out douse our heads under the tap. I had two Mexican assistants to wheel wood from the pile to the boiler, and to wheel away the ashes. The reason there was no shed over the boilers was simply bad management and bad plans; later on all this was changed.