The law in the State of Texas makes it a felony to cut a man’s pasture fence, and the punishment is up to five years in the penitentiary. A couple of days after I had fixed the fences the station agent at Cline telephoned me that the wagons were up there again unloading. I got on my horse, and soon found where they had torn down the fence and come through. I wired the sheriff to send me out a deputy at once, and on his arrival went out with him and a gang of men, rebuilt the fence, and the lot of us sat down to await results. Soon the wagons arrived, and on the first one sat the president of the rival company and his lawyer. The former, whom I knew, called out to me and asked me why I had built the fences so strong, as it only gave his men unnecessary trouble. The deputy then warned him that he was breaking the law in touching the fence, but he gave his men orders to pull it down, and they came on through. I wanted the deputy to arrest him, and I and my men would help, but he refused, for fear, as he said, of trouble; but his real reason, I found out later, was that his orders from Henry Burns were not to make any arrests. The case came up for trial, and Henry Bums turned us down, getting an unfriendly jury who threw the case out of court. He had been bought by the opposition, and this was the main ground on which I fought him later at elections. We got an injunction in the federal court, prohibiting them from crossing our grounds, and they had to haul to Uvalde, twenty miles, instead of Cline, eight miles. The whole thing, however, had been a bluff, as their deposit was worthless, and they were simply trying to scare us into selling our product at a low price to them. Their bluff not working, they finally had to buy material from us at our own price, as they had a large paving contract to fill and nothing to fill it with. The way these bluffs are worked in some of the States, regardless of law, is simply astounding. CHAPTER XX More American Business Methods—Trip to Corpus Christi—Trouble at the Mine—West Texas as a Health Resort—Expenses of the Simple Life.