It was arranged that we should leave the mines on Saturday night, camp out, and come home on Sunday afternoon. We started at 6.30 P.M., got over to the river by eight o’clock, and by eleven o’clock I and a young electrician named Burnet were the only two sober men in the crowd. Luckily for me Burnet was a giant in strength and a “Long-horn” (as native-born Texans are called); for it was not long before the others started wrangling, and finally one of them said he could lick any one in the crowd, bare hands or with a knife. I and Burnet suppressed him and took away his knife, then Burnet told the rest of the men he would lick any one who started trouble, and we all rolled up in our blankets and tried to get some sleep. But every few minutes the first man would stick his head out of his blankets and say, “I can lick any one in the crowd.” Finally, this got monotonous, and Burnet told him he would sit him on the fire to cool off. This subdued him for a while, and I was beginning to think for good, when, just as I was dropping asleep, out popped his head with the same remark, which he repeated again after a short interval. Not getting called down by Burnet, he finally got quite brave, crawled out of his blankets, and kept getting louder and louder in his remarks. Just as I was beginning to think Burnet must be asleep, and was preparing to try a fall with him myself, up jumped Burnet and, grabbing his man, threw him bodily into the fire. Luckily for the poor devil, he staggered as he fell, and consequently dropped mostly on the far side of the fire, with only his legs in it. He soon jerked them out, and escaped with no worse hurt than singed pants. After this we had peace for the rest of the night.