Don't let me ever see this again, sir."

As I turned to go from him, I heard him mutter something. I at once, with
my hand upon my revolver, came back towards him and inquired, "what's this
you're saying, sir?"

He replied, "I kicked the jacks myself and I will do it again if they
bother me."

I walked to within perhaps ten paces of him and said, "If I ever catch you
at it, I will shoot you like a dog."

"Two," he replied, "can play at that game," and his hand neared the butt
of his revolver. I jerked out my pistol and fired at his arm. His pistol
dropped to the ground.

"Don't shoot again, captain. I will do as you wish in the future."

"All right," said I. "Let me see your arm."

I had shot him through his wrist. I bound up the wound as well as I could,
and it soon healed. He remained in my employ nearly four years after that,
and to my knowledge was never guilty of doing me or my animals a wrong.

Another instance happened a long time after this. I was getting short of
provisions, and had got to do just so much work within a certain time. So
I resolved to run two instruments. As we were then running sectional
lines, I could take the variations at night. So I fixed another instrument
and gave it into the hands of a young man by the name of Biddleman. I
assigned to him his part of the line then, and set him at work within
three miles of the camp.

Returning to camp about two o'clock in the afternoon, to do some traverse
work around a small lake, what was my astonishment, to see that
Biddleman's party was already in camp. Upon asking him what it meant, he
told me that upon running a random line, he stopped to correct the error
at the half mile corner, and that his men on getting to the mile corner,
instead of coming back and reporting the error as they should have done,
started for camp. He, of course, followed on, as he could not do anything
alone.

I at once called his party of men, told them to get their chain and pins,
put the stakes, pickaxe and shovel on the line animal, and follow me. This
they did. When we got to the corner where Biddleman left off work, I set
my instrument, gave them an object to run by, and sent them off. They went
and returned to me. I then ran another mile north, set my instrument and
started them east again on random. They went and I followed them to the
half mile corner, to which place they returned.

I said: "Boys, we will now go to camp. In future whether with me or
Biddlema