Chapter I: Preface

In the early ’eighties lads who preferred exercise to examinations looked abroad for work, and parents who feared their failure in competitions agreed with them. Ditties like—

“To the West, to the West, to the land of the free,
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea,”

had long moved our agricultural class America-wards; perhaps the next line—

“Where a man is a man if he’s willing to toil,”

did not so much appeal to middle-class youth, but there were always visions of “broncho-busting” and rope-swinging. Moreover, no one in England, of whatever class, knew what “toil” meant, as understood in Canada and the States.

Land was easy to get in those days, free grants of 160 acres on certain conditions of exploitation which were often evaded. After weary search from Iowa northward I reached a rolling country dotted with small lakes and groves, leading up to the beautiful valley of the Little Saskatchewan. My driver said that some land which I fancied here was certainly taken up, but I saw a Scotchman ploughing and we foregathered. He told me that the other holders around were “jumping” new grants elsewhere, and that the little “breaking” which they had done did not fulfil conditions. Investigation proved this, and I bought two square miles at prairie value from the railway whose line was to traverse this very land. My son eventually did not use it, and, twenty years later, still as “prairie,” it fetched enough to cover the original price _plus_ accumulated interest and taxes.

My son was right; farming, as I saw it in my wanderings, was not attractive. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, the surroundings were delightful, but profits seemed small; while the prairie, from the Canadian Pacific Railway down to Iowa, though certainly productive, was to my eyes as heart-breaking as the plains of India.

Travelling south from Buffalo, after a visit to the Guelph Agricultural College, which later received my son, a farmer joined me. He was Yankee to look at, but his tongue was Devonshire. It attracted a rough-looking customer in our carriage; he was Cumberland, and we three exchanged ideas. Cumberland was a wanderer who had worked all over the States up to the Pacific; Devonshire was naturalised, and thereon Cumberland took him to task. Devonshire, he said, had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Devonshire submitted that he could live on the pottage, while Cumberland did not seem to thrive on the birthright. Both had been agricultural labourers at home, and now Devonshire had a little holding nestling in one of the lovely vales which we were traversing. He could live thereon, certainly, but what a life! Cumberland, I think, had a better time, while able for the varied work which he could always find. Better for either would have been our army, navy, or police. That class does not know the soldier’s advantages when he has risen to sergeant and stays in the army.

Sore though my son’s struggle was he was right not to farm. Certainly he lost his capital, but this is the normal English lot in the States; at his mine in Texas a man came for a watchman’s job who had started with £4000! Such, it seems, is the “footing” which the gentle, handicapped by their traditions, must necessarily pay. Nevertheless, those traditions are an asset, as this book shows; so are horsemanship; the athletics and the “straight left” which public schools taught in those days if they taught little else; also a straight eye and steady nerve behind a pistol. My son’s experience may not tempt others of his class to seek fortune in America, but if they do so they will learn therefrom what to expect, in what spirit to meet it, and what equipment they need.

L. J. H. GREY.

_March 1912._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

"Thousand Pounders"—Ontario Agricultural College—Political 1
Meetings—Volunteer Artillery—Value of the Agricultural
College

CHAPTER II

Calgary—A Cow-puncher—"Roping"—Life on a Ranch—A Calgary 11
Hail-storm—“Gun-plays” and "Bad-men"—Sarci Indians

CHAPTER III

Road-agents—“Roping” Contests—Broncho-busting—Strathclair—A 24
Blizzard—Lumber Camps

CHAPTER IV

An Injured Knee—The "Laird"—Kit destroyed by Fire—Hunting 31
round Strathclair—Trapping—“Batching”

CHAPTER V

Chicago—American Business Methods—Work as a 38
Carbonator—Chicago Fair—“Hard-luck” Stories—Remittance-men

CHAPTER VI

Looking for Work—An Englishman’s Disadvantages—Addressing 47
Envelopes—Running a Lift—Bogus Advertisements—Various Jobs

CHAPTER VII

Life under Difficulties—Drawbacks of a Public-school 55
Training—Hints on Emigration—Pneumonia—Unemployment in
Chicago, 1893

CHAPTER VIII

Hard Times—Health restored—Rabbit-catching—Hunting in Iowa—A 64
Gentleman Tramp—The Hobo Business—Free Railway Travelling

CHAPTER IX

Toronto—An Interest in a Mine—The Railway Strike of 73
1894—Stranded at La Junta, Colorado—Strike
Incidents—Troops called out

CHAPTER X

Golden—Pack-horse Difficulties—Camping out—Prospecting in 80
British Columbia—On an Asphaltum Mine in Texas

CHAPTER XI

Cline—Bunk-houses—Work on a Rock-crusher—Mexican Dancing and 88
Music

CHAPTER XII

Trouble at the Dance—A New Superintendent—Shots in the 96
Dark—Arrest of Bud—With a Surveying Party

CHAPTER XIII

Swimming-holes—Hunting in West Texas—Fishing in the Nueces 104
River—Jim Conners—Foreman Betner—A Runaway Car

CHAPTER XIV

A Sunday Fishing Party—"Bad-men"—Ben Thompson and other 113
Desperadoes—The Story of a Hot Spring

CHAPTER XV

Coyotes—Wild Turkeys—Lynching and Jury Trial in 122
Texas—Pistol-shooting—Negro Vitality

CHAPTER XVI

A "Periodical"—Italian Treachery—Bitumen Extractors—The 129
Mexican Disregard for Orders—In Charge of the Stills—A
Vote Canvasser

CHAPTER XVII

Elections in Texas—Feuds and Shooting Affrays—Family 138
Pride—Prohibition

CHAPTER XVIII

A "Grandstander"—The Sheriff takes Possession—Night 148
Watchman—Monte Jim—Further Trouble

CHAPTER XIX

Promoted to Foreman—Overwork and Eye-strain—Mexican 157
Traits—Amateur Doctor—A Rival Asphalt Company—Its Failure

CHAPTER XX

More American Business Methods—Trip to Corpus 165
Christi—Trouble at the Mine—West Texas as a Health
Resort—Expenses of the Simple Life

CHAPTER XXI

"Northers"—Almost Frozen—The Mexican Indian—Cold-blooded 172
Ingratitude—Mexican Untrustworthiness

CHAPTER XXII

Employed by a Paving Company—The Growth of Los Angeles—Its 180
Land Values—A Centre for Tourists

CHAPTER XXIII

"Graft"—Seeking Contracts in Los Angeles—In Charge of Street 189
Work—Crooked Business

CHAPTER XXIV

Bribery and Corruption—The Good Government League—Servant 196
Problem in California—The Climate and its Effect on
Wages—Off to Guadalajara

CHAPTER XXV

The Barber Company—Guadalajara—Mexican Mendacity—Don Miguel 204
Ahumada—His Humanity and Justice

CHAPTER XXVI

The Mexican Workman—His Remembrance of a Grudge—The 213
_Commissaria_—Private Feuds—American _versus_ English

CHAPTER XXVII

Bull-fighting—Mexican Etiquette—The Police Department and 219
its Difficulties—Treatment of Habitual Criminals—The Army

CHAPTER XXVIII

Federal Rurales—Robbery by Servants—Wholesale Thieving—Lack 229
of Police Discipline—A Story of Roosevelt

CHAPTER XXIX

Tequila—Mexican Respect for the White Man—Personal Vengeance 237
preferred to Law—Mexican Stoicism—Victims of Red Tape

CHAPTER XXX

Accidents at the Mines—Mexico City—Peculiar 243
Laws—"Evidence"—A Theft of Straw

CHAPTER XXXI

Solitary Confinement—Mexican Rogues—The Humorous Side—A 249
Member of the Smart Set—The Milkmen

CHAPTER XXXII

Carrying Firearms—The Business of Mexico—Its Management by 257
Foreigners—Real Estate and Mining Booms—Foreign
Capital—Imports and Exports

CHAPTER XXXIII

Climate of Guadalajara—American Tramps—Courtship under 266
Difficulties—Influence of the Priesthood—The _Metayer_
System

CHAPTER XXXIV

Curious Customs—The Abuse of Concessions—Flagrant 273
Examples—Prospects for Foreigners in Mexico—President
Diaz—Mr. Denny’s Life-story

CHAPTER XXXV

Mr. Denny and a Mining Claim—Wholesale Killing 282
averted—Stories of Shooting Escapades

CHAPTER XXXVI

Macdonald Institute at Guelph—Agricultural College—Their 292
Value to Students—Back to Work through Texas

CHAPTER XXXVII

Puebla, the Misgoverned—Justice under Colonel Cabrera—Royal 300
Family of Chihuahua—Tampico—Presidents Diaz and Madero

Seeking Fortune in America