WE GET A RAW DEAL 159 



they cut out the noon feed as we had suggested. 

 And the trouble stopjied immediately, only one 

 or two very mild cases appearing after this. 



It was the rawest deal we ever got and it made 

 us pretty "sore"; we had absolutely no chance to 

 get a square deal and we had to be satisfied with 

 the fifteen dollars. We did not even get the 

 satisfaction of speaking our mind ; the camp was 

 an aggregation of "touch-mugs," and while my 

 brother and I had faced some pretty tough 

 gangs, we knew too much about "safety first" to 

 show fight here; we could "feel it in the 

 atmosphere" that this game had been deliberately 

 framed up on us. 



I don't doubt but what we would have been 

 "man-handled" had we so much as "peeped." 

 However, we let them know later that had we 

 had any premonition that such a deal was to be 

 pulled on us, we would have gotten our hundred 

 dollars! For in that day and age my brother 

 and I were mighty handy fellows with a shooting 

 iron, and our view of life in those davs was such 

 that our nerve was mighty good, and we didn't 

 "scare worth a darn." 



Although we sent them this information as a 

 sort of challenge, none of them ever "called our 

 hand." They were nothing but a gang of bluf- 

 fers, and only pulled off their dirty work where 

 they knew they could get away with it. 



One satisfaction we derived later, though; it 

 was when a horse was seriously injured a few 

 weeks later by falling off the dump. Of course, 

 they could not send for my brother or me, and 



