In about one hour afterwards, one of his sons who was pretty tough and the other son were close by.  Another man by the name of WELSH whispered to me to be on my guard, that they had come to get me.  As the tough one stood at the pay window, he said, "What about this trouble?"  I explained it to him but I could see that he was far from being satisfied.  He mumbled some words that I could not understand.  Then I asked him if he expected me to be hit with a rock or did he want me to stand still and let him stick a knife in me.  There was only a thin three-eighths inch sheeting ceiling between us.  Our shoulders and heads were above the small pay window.  I knew he had two guns on him.  My gun was on the inside of the thin ceiling held in my hand.  It was pointed directly at his breast, in case he should start anything.  He walked away but was far from being pleased.

As I looked around, this man WELSH who was my friend, said to me, "I wasn't going to let the four of them jump on you."  He had a heavy rifle in his hand and told me that he stood behind the door with only the muzzle of the rifle in sight drawn on John MALLICOAT's forehead.  MALLICOAT could see him.  I was told that they would get me when I came out to go home.  It was just a little dark when I left the office.  I stepped out of the door with my gun in my hand; I looked around and could see some men a little distance away passing a cabin door.  The door was open and I noticed some men sitting inside, but nothing happened as I went home.  I was told afterwards that two of the MALLICOATs were in the cabin.  A colored man who batched in it was alone when I passed by.  One of the MALLICOATs carried a rifle around with him several weeks.  Sometimes, I thought I would ask him who he was carrying the rifle around for and then I thought it best to let it go.  People said they were a bad lot to get mixed up with.  The father died a violent death and I was told that two of the sons died in the same way.  I went to the mountain and found the chain that caused the trouble.

Another incident happened at the office where two bookkeepers were employed. WILLIAMS and HOSKINS sent word to me that Artie MARCUM was disturbing the bookkeepers by threatening to shoot them out of the office.  I hurried down to the office and found MARCUM with a large revolver in his hand pointing it through a small pay window and looking as if he would soon begin shooting into the office.  He was angry, because, as he said, he had been overcharged and he wanted them to make the correction right now or he would shoot it out with them.  When I stepped from the store into the office, he still had his gun on the window sill.  I told him to take it off and not to point it this way and he began cursing.  Suddenly I reached for a gun that was lying on top of the desk.  MARCUM withdrew from the window, cursing and shouting.

I said, 'This disturbance must stop."  With the pistol still in my hand, I went out to tell him to be quiet and if there was a wrong in his account, I would see that it would be corrected.  When he saw me coming out, he ran behind a corner of the building twenty feet away, exposing only his head and his gun pointing directly at me.  I advanced a few steps toward him and told him to lower the gun.  This he did and as he lowered his gun it went off in front of me, throwing gravel and dirt into my face but doing no harm.  I took his gun from his hand.  All this time, I had him covered with my gun.  This made him nervous.  When he started away he said with an oath that he was going to get his rifle and come back, but he did not come back.  He had a very bad reputation.  A few years later, he killed a man and later on he got killed.

About this time, many shootings were taking place around Jellico and at the coal mines.  One more incident happened to me at the East Tennessee mines.  I had hired a man by the name of JENKS to mine coal.  He came from the Southern Road.  He was tough looking and about 40 years of age.  A man by the name of NEAL, who knew him, told me that he had a reputation of being a very bad man.  He told me that he was going to make me go down on my knees some day.  I understood that this was a habit of his at other mines just to show off before their men.  He made a statement to some men who were my friends that he had a shotgun loaded with ten penny nails for me.

I heard this kind of talk so much that I determined to end it.  On Saturday, I saw him standing in the store talking to a crowd of men.  I walked up close to him and told him what I had heard.  The crowd now looked for trouble and began to move away.  JENKS denied all the things I had heard.  All this time, I kept my eye fastened on him so that he would get no advantage over me.  I told him that I would take his word for it and that we would let the matter drop.  He left the camp the next day.  He did a lot of talking, but failed to do anything.