e clutch of a
hunger like that of the jungle, where might and cunning rule. At a
signal from the cook, we rushed in, crushed by main force into a seat,
seized whatever was nearest and began. Scarcely a word was
spoken--heads down, hands and jaws at top speed. The disgusting
spectacle lasted but a few minutes, then up and out to smoke and talk.

Beside me sat a strong, powerfully built German boy, who joked about
the age of the pork for supper.

"What you guff about?" the burly steward asked.

"Schmell, py gee--its tick mit bad schmell!"

"Vell, you shut your ---- maut or I smash your ---- head, see?"

The boy laughed, then the steward removed his plate and refused to
give any more. Nobody took any notice. We were too busy and too
brutally selfish to interfere. The steward was the camp bully and the
men were afraid of him. They must not even laugh at his provisions. We
had pork for breakfast, we took pork chops to the mines for dinner,
and the staple article--the standby--of every supper was pork. Pigs in
Alabama are like turnips in Scotland--there are no property rights in
them. They breed and litter in the tall dog-fennel; they root around
the shanties and cover the landscape.

"Who owns these pigs?" I asked old Ransom Pope, a Negro.

"One an' anoder!" he said.

The gullies and the weeds were full of them and the steward found them
easy and cheap feeding.

"You come yere for breakfast to-morrow an' I smash your dam head!" the
steward said to the boy, as we left the dining room. There was no
reply. Each man went his way. They were tired--too tired to think.
Though a stranger to even the taste of liquor, I had an intense
craving for it and it seemed as if I had used it all my life. An hour
after supper, I lay down on my sodden pile and went to sleep.

I was awakened next morning by a Norwegian mucker who was organizing a
strike over the incident of the tainted pork. Five minutes later,
every man in the shed was around the stove in an impromptu indignation
meeting. It was agreed that Max, the German boy, should go in first;
if the steward put him out, we were all to leave with him and refuse
to work. He was allowed to take breakfast but was refused a dinner
pail. We dropped ours and marched to the office in a body. An
investigation was made and it was discovered that the steward was
feeding us on his neighbour's pork and charging it to the company. He
was discharged and we went back to the camp to make merry f