the gymnasium; we were both as hard as iron. Deering was as supple as a
boa-constrictor, and had a fist like a twelve-pound hammer. Later, the
boys told me the fight lasted twenty minutes. The last I saw was Deering
knocked out on the ground, and then my eyes closed, and the boys led me
to my room. They swathed my eyes with raw beefsteaks and raw oysters,
rubbed me down, and put me to bed. It was ten days before I got out; it
was two weeks before Deering did. Then there was an investigation. It
was shown that I took up a fight that Thorne commenced; that Thorne had
gone for a gun in case I should get the worst of it. So Deering was
reinstated, and Thorne and myself expelled. At the time I had a silver
watch and four dollars in money. I sold the watch for fourteen dollars. I
wrote the facts to my father, and told him I was going West, for he is a
straight-laced Presbyterian; I knew he would feel eternally disgraced by
my expulsion, and I did not want to hear his reproaches. Thorne wanted to
give me money, but I told him I had plenty.

"I worked my way to Texas, and stopped one night at the house of a big
cattle man named Thomas Jordan. I had just $1.50 left. He worked out of
me my history, and when I explained why I was expelled from school, he
laughed until he cried, and said: 'And yo' licked the coon!' and then
went off again into a mighty fit of laughter.

"He was a man about thirty years of age, spare built, but wiry as an
Indian. He had black hair and eyes; he was not educated, but was
naturally a bright man; was brave as a lion; could ride like a Comanche;
was a splendid shot, and had been West; took up a gold mine in Arizona,
opened it, and sold it three years before I met him for $25,000, and with
that bought the ranch and stock. He was originally from Tennessee; when a
boy was in the Confederate army; had been knocked about until he was a
perfect man of affairs, and the heart within him was simply just royal.