I was to have sixty dollars a month and board.  The company operated a commissary store, a regular “pluck-me” concern, and I shortly understood the incentive in offering me such good wages.  All employees were encouraged and expected to draw their pay in supplies, which were sold at treble their actual value from the commissary.  I had been raised among negroes, knew how to humor and handle them, the work was easy, and I drifted along with all my faculties alert.  Before long I saw that the improvement of the river was the least of the company’s concern, the employment of a large number of men being the chief motive, so long as they drew their wages in supplies.  True, we scattered a few lodgments of driftwood; with the aid of a flat-bottomed scow we windlassed up and cut out a number of old snags, felled trees into the river to prevent erosion of its banks, and we built a large number of wind-dams to straighten or change the channel.  It seemed to be a blanket contract,—­a reward to the faithful,—­and permitted of any number of extras which might be charged for at any figures the contractors saw fit to make.  At the end of the first month I naturally looked for my wages.  Various excuses were made, but I was cordially invited to draw anything needed from the commissary.

A second month passed, during which time the only currency current was in the form of land certificates.  The Commonwealth of Texas, on her admission into the Union, retained the control of her lands, over half the entire area of the State being unclaimed at the close of the civil war.  The carpet-bag government, then in the saddle, was prodigal to its favorites in bonuses of land to any and all kinds of public improvement.  Certificates were issued in the form of scrip calling for sections of the public domain of six hundred and forty acres each, and were current at from three to five cents an acre.  The owner of one or more could locate on any of the unoccupied lands of the present State by merely surveying and recording his selection at the county seat.  The scrip was bandied about, no one caring for it, and on the termination of my second month I was offered four sections for my services up to date, provided I would remain longer in the company’s employ.  I knew the value of land in the older States, in fact, already had my eye on some splendid valleys on the Clear Fork, and accepted the offered certificates.  The idea found a firm lodgment in my mind, and I traded one of my six-shooters even for a section of scrip, and won several more in card games.  I had learned to play poker in the army,—­knew the rudiments of the game at least,—­and before the middle of March I was the possessor of certificates calling for thirty sections of land.  As the time was drawing near for my return to Palo Pinto County, I severed my connection with the dredging company and returned to the home of my old comrade.  I had left my horse with him, and under the pretense of paying for feeding the animal well for the return trip, had slipped my crony a small gold piece several times during the winter.  He ridiculed me over my land scrip, but I was satisfied, and after spending a day with the couple I started on my return.