Some of the camps were entirely of negroes, and the first requisite with them seemed to be a gun and a razor. Frequently one would come to town slashed up, or with a wound of some sort, and require the attention of the doctor. Each of the negro camps held some of the female variety, and these were eternally at war. More wounds were made by the one-fourth female population, and upon one another, than there were in the three-fourths male population.

It took hardy characters to handle these camps, among which probably J. F. Williams, a powerful one-armed Texan, was the peer. I do not recall a fatality in all the negro fights, but there is a story that has gone along with the years, that here are negroes buried in the twelve and fifteen foot ditch banks. This may be true but it probably resulted from an affair that Williams pulled off to scare his refractory camp into submission and industry.

One morning, as the first teams came up the bank with Fresnos filled with dirt, Williams was there. Near where he was standing there were a pair of partly exposed boots, of the kind worn by the laborers. They were in a position that indicated they might be upon feet. The dirt had been partly dug out with a spade, and the hole again refilled, and it had the appearance of a partly buried man. Williams called to the driver to dump his dirt over the boots, "and finish burying this dead nigger." There were no independent or saucy negroes in Williams camp after that incident.