ey asked me how I felt. I told them my feet were pretty sore.

"I went over to the station agent and found out that there was a freight
due at 9:30 but that sometimes it didn't get in until three in the
morning. I then asked permission to light a fire and cook some coffee,
and after we were thru eating we lay down.

"About 9:30 the train came along and I called the men. As the train was
backing up I saw some light come, and one auto throwing her searchlight,
and I counted four automobiles. That is all I could count but there were
a whole lot of them coming. I says, 'Men, we have run up against a stone
wall.'

"Fellow Worker Love and I--he came off the machine with me in Great
Falls--we were first in line and Sheriff McRae and two other men with
white handkerchiefs around their necks came forward first and he says,
'You son-of-a-b----, I thought you were going to Seattle?' I says,
'Ain't I going to Seattle? I can't go till the train goes,' I says,
'you've had me walking now till I have no foot under me. What do you
mean by this outrage? My father fought for this country and I have a
right here. I am on railroad property and have done nothing to anybody.'
McRae then hit Fellow Worker Love on the head and I yelled 'Break and
run, men, or they will kill you!' He turned around then and he said to
me, 'You dirty old Irish bastard, now I will make you so you can't run.
I'll show you!' With that he let drive and hit me, leaving this three
cornered mark here (indicating place on head). And when the others went
up the track he says, 'Get now, God damn your old soul, or I will kill
you!' I says, 'Sheriff, look here, you are a perfect gentleman, you are,
to hit a fellow old enough to be your father.' He made as if to hit me
again and then Fellow Worker Love came back and says, 'Have a heart!' I
says 'You run,' and he says 'No, they are not going to kill you while I
am here.' And Fellow Worker Paterson came back down the track and I
says, 'What is the matter, Paterson, are you crazy? Get the men and tell
them to go over the line. Don't stay in this county or they are liable
to murder you!' Then Love and I went off the track into the thick bushes
and lay down till next morning.

"At daylight we got up, went down to the junction and gathered up
fifteen of the men. When the train pulled in the trainman asked me where
I was going and I said I was going to Seattle. He says, 'Do you carry a
card?' 'Yes,' says I. 'Produce!' says he. Tha