In those days, the lumber-jack was a very interesting type of man. Men from Maine and New Brunswick were numerous. Scotchmen, Irish-Americans, and French-Canadians constituted a considerable portion of all the labor that went to the logging camps of Minnesota. As early as the month of July, they began their exodus from Minneapolis to the woods for the purpose of building new camps, cutting the wild grass that grew along the natural meadows, and making it into hay for the winter's use for oxen and horses. Some of these men worked at the sawmills in summer, but there was not employment for all at this work, and many spent their time in idleness and not infrequently in drunken carousal. On leaving the city for the logging camps, they were pretty sure to start out, each with one or two bottles of whiskey stored away in his tussock, which was ordinarily a two bushel, seamless sack, with a piece of small rope tied from one of its lower corners to the upper end of the sack. In this were placed all of the lumber-jack's belongings, except what were carried in his pockets, including one or two additional bottles of whiskey. Not all of the lumber-jacks drank whiskey, but this was the habit of very many of them. By the time the train had arrived at Northern Pacific Junction, where a change of cars was made, and where the arrival of the Northern Pacific train from Duluth, west bound, was awaited, many of our lumber-jacks were well under the influence of John Barleycorn. Disputes would frequently arise while waiting for the train. These would be settled by fist fights between the disputants, their comrades standing about to see that each man had fair play.