There came a message one day to our captain, to send a man up West on
that line to take charge of a murderer. The result was, I was sent by
the first train to this point. When I arrived I found that an
Irishman had killed a Chinaman. It was on the railroad, at a bridge
construction camp, that the fracas took place. There were something
like a hundred employees at the camp, and they ran their own
boarding-tent. They had a Chinese cook at this camp; in fact, quite a
number of Chinese were employed at common labor on the road.

"Some cavalryman, it was thought, in passing up and down from Fort
Stockton to points on the river, had lost his sabre, and one of this
bridge gang had found it. When it was brought into camp no one would
have the old corn-cutter; but this Irishman took a shine to it, having
once been a soldier himself. The result was, it was presented to
him. He ground it up like a machette, and took great pride in giving
exhibitions with it. He was an old man now, the storekeeper for the
iron supplies, a kind of trusty job. The old sabre renewed his
youth to a certain extent, for he used it in self-defense shortly
afterwards. This Erin-go-bragh--his name was McKay, I think--was in
the habit now and then of stealing a pie from the cook, and taking
it into his own tent and eating it there. The Chink kept missing his
pies, and got a helper to spy out the offender. The result was they
caught the old man red-handed in the act. The Chink armed himself with
the biggest butcher-knife he had and went on the warpath. He found the
old fellow sitting in his storeroom contentedly eating the pie. The
old man had his eyes on the cook, and saw the knife just in time to
jump behind some kegs of nuts and bolts. The Chink followed him with
murder in his eye, and as the old man ran out of the tent he picked
up the old sabre. Once clear of the tent he turned and faced him,
made only one pass, and cut his head off as though he were beheading