Then the tables turned. The tailor was out-tailored in three minutes, for in that time James had asked him seven questions which he could not answer. Hence the captain’s allowance for the boy’s refusal to fight. Letcher knew enough to appreciate the reason. The _Evening Star_ had a long trip before her, as the present load consisted of copper ore consigned to Pittsburgh. This ore came down to Cleveland first in schooners from Lake Superior, where those great treasuries of ore, which still seem inexhaustible, were at that time just beginning to become important interests. The habit of the canal-boatmen was to take up the copper at Cleveland, carry it to Pittsburgh, and bring back loads of coal. Garfield’s first experience here must have given him new ideas of the growing industries of his country. This constant and immense carrying trade between distant places indicated the play of grand forces; these great iron foundries and factories at Pittsburgh betokened millions of active capital, thousands of skilled workmen, and fast-increasing cities abounding in wonders and in wealth. Whatever the immediate result of Garfield’s canal life might have been, whether the boatmen had voted him coward or general, one fact must have remained—the mental stimulus imparted from these things which he had seen. Then must have dawned upon him for the first time a sense of the unmeasured possibilities which lay before his own country. Tramp, tramp the mules; lock after lock has been left behind, each turn bringing a new landscape, and the young driver pushed bravely on, self-reliant, patient, and popular with all the men. For these rough comrades liked him from the first as a pleasant fellow, and soon admired him as well. Opportunity came to him on the way to prove himself their equal in fighting qualities, and more than their equal in generosity. The occasion was one the like of which he often knew, where he came off victor with the odds favoring his enemies. At Beaver, from a point where the boats were towed up to Pittsburgh by steamboat, the _Evening Star_ was about to be taken in. As Garfield stood in the bow of the boat, a burly Irishman, named Dave Murphy, who stood a few feet behind, was accidentally struck by a flying piece of rope from the steamer, which had evaded Garfield and gone over his head. No harm was done, but Murphy was a bully who saw here a good chance for a fight. He was thirty-five years old, Garfield sixteen. Turning on the boy in a towering rage, he aimed a blow with all his strength. But as sometimes occurs to men with more brawn than brains, he soon discovered that in this case Providence was _not_ “on the side of the heavy battalions.” By a dexterous motion James eluded his antagonist, at the same instant planting a blow behind the fellow’s ear which sent him spinning into the bottom of the boat. Before the man could recover, his young antagonist held him down by the throat. The boatmen cheered the boy on; according to their rules of