He was a Cuban, with the face of a cutthroat.

Doubtless he was the descendant of the Spanish-English buccaneers who used to prowl the Caribbean Sea and make headquarters at New Orleans.

Beside this pirate ancestry I'll bet he was a direct descendant of Simon Legree.

He suspected that I couldn't do much in a dyking camp, so he swarmed down on me the second week I was there and ordered me to quit the water-carrying job and handle a mule team and a scraper.

I saw death put an arm around my neck right then and there.