When they had gone Yank opened his eyes from the apparent sleep into which he had fallen.

"You fellows don't hang around here with me, I can tell you that," he stated. "I'm fixed all right. I want you to make arrangements with these people yere to keep me; tuck my gold under my piller, stack old Betsey up yere in the corner by me, and go about your business. You come out yere to dig gold, not to take keer of cripples."

"All right, Yank, we'll fix it somehow," I agreed. "Now if you're all right, Johnny and I will just go and straighten out our camp things a little."

We were now, it will be remembered, without horses. Don Gaspar had unpacked our few belongings before departing. Johnny and I found a good camping place, then carried the stuff over on our backs. We cooked ourselves some food, lit pipes, and sat down to talk the situation over.

We got nowhere. As a matter of fact, we were both in the dead-water of reaction from hard, long-continued labour, and we could not bring ourselves to face with any enthusiasm the resuming of gold washing. Revulsion shook us at the mere thought of getting down in a hot, glaring ravine and moving heavy earth and rocks. Yet we had not made a fortune, nor much of a beginning at one, and neither of us was what is known as a quitter. We realized perfectly that we would go on gold mining.

"What we need is a recess," Johnny ended, "and I move we take it. Just let's camp here, and loaf for a few days or a week, and see how Yank gets along, and then we can go back to Porcupine."

As though this decision lifted a great weight, we sat back on our shoulder blades with a sigh of relief, and blew tobacco smoke straight up in the air for at least fifteen minutes. By the end of that time we, being young and restless, felt thoroughly refreshed.

"Let's go look this outfit over," suggested Johnny.

We gravitated naturally to the diggings, which were very much like those at Hangman's Gulch, except that they were rather more extensive, and branched out more into the tributary ravines. The men working there were, many of them, of a much better type than those we had seen in town; though even here was a large element of rough-looking, wild, reckless customers. We wandered about here and there, our hands in our pockets, a vast leisure filling our souls. With some of the more pleasant-appearing miners we conversed. They told us that the diggings were rich, good "ounce a day" diggings. We saw a good many cradles in use. It was easy to tell the old-timers from the riffraff of newcomers. A great many of the latter seemed to lack the steadiness of purpose characteristic of nearly all the first rush. They worked haphazardly, spasmodically, pulling and hauling against each other. Some should not have been working at all, for their eyes were sunken in their heads from illness.

"We've got to hustle now," they told us. "We can take a good rest when the rains stop work."

We noticed especially a marked change in demeanour among some of the groups. In the early part of the summer every man answered every man good-naturedly, except he happened to have a next day's head or some other sort of a personal grouch. Now many compact little groups of men worked quite apart. When addressed they merely scowled or looked sullen, evidently quite unwilling to fraternize with the chance-comer.

We loafed about here and there through the diggings, swapping remarks with the better disposed, until the men began to knock off work. Then we returned through the village.

Its street had begun to fill. Here, too, we could not but be struck by the subtle change that had come over the spirit of the people. All used to seem like the members of a big family, good-natured and approachable even when strangers. Now a slower acquaintance must precede familiarity. We seemed out of it because we did not know anybody, something we had not felt before in a mining camp. There was no hostility in this, not an iota; only now it had evidently become necessary to hold a man off a little until one knew something about him. People seemed, somehow, watchful, in spite of the surface air of good-nature and of boisterous spirits. We did not quite understand this at the moment, but we learned more about it later.

We sauntered along peering into the various buildings. The saloons were here more elaborate than at Hangman's, the gambling places larger, and with some slight attempt at San Francisco splendour. That is to say, there were large gilt-framed mirrors on the walls, nude pictures, and in some cases a stage for musical performers. One of the three stores was devoted entirely to clothing and "notions," to us a new departure in specialization. We were sadly in need of garments, so we entered, and were at once met by a very oily, suave specimen of the chosen people. When we had escaped from this robber's den we looked at each other in humorous dismay.

"Glad Yank don't need clothes, anyway," said Johnny.

We were, it will be remembered, out of provisions, so we entered also one of the general stores to lay in a small supply. The proprietor proved to be an old friend, Jones, the storekeeper at Hangman's.

"Which," said Johnny shrewdly, "is a sad commentary on the decline of the diggings at Hangman's."

Jones was evidently prosperous, and doing business on a much larger scale than at the old place; for in his commodious building were quantities of goods displayed and many barrels and boxes still unopened. He did not recognize us, of course; and we had to await the completion of a tale he was telling a group perched on the counters and on the boxes.

"Got a consignment of mixed goods from Mellin," he was saying, "and one of the barrels wasn't marked with anything I could make out. I knocked the top in, and chucked her out behind for spoiled beef. Certainly stunk like it. Well, sir, that barrel lay there for a good ten days; and then one day up drifted a Dutchman with a brogue on him thick enough to plant flag-poles in. 'How mooch,' says he 'is dot stoof?' 'What stuff?' says I. 'Dot stoof oudt behind.' 'I ain't got no stuff out behind! What's eating you?' says I. Then he points out that spoiled beef. 'Good Lord!' says I, 'help yourself. I got a lot of nerve, but not enough to charge a man for anything that stinks like that beef. But you better let it alone; you'll get sick!' Well, sir, you wouldn't think there was any Dutchmen in the country, now would you? but they came to that stink like flies to molasses. Any time I'd look out the back door I'd see one or two nosing around that old spoiled beef. Then one day another old beer-belly sagged in. 'Say, you got any more barrels of dot sauerkraut?' he wants to know. 'That what?' I asks. 'Dot sauerkraut,' says he, 'like dot in the backyard. I gif you goot price for a whole barrel,' says he. And here I'd give away a whole barrel! I might've got a dollar a pound for the stuff. I don't know what it might be worth to a Dutchman."

He turned away to wait on us.

"And you wouldn't guess there was so many Dutchmen in the country!" he repeated.

We paid his terrible prices for our few necessities, and went out. The music was beginning to tune up from the gambling places and saloons. It reminded us of our Italian friend.

"Seems to me his place was right here where we are," puzzled Johnny. "Hanged if I don't believe this is the place; only they've stuck a veranda roof on it."

We turned into the entrance of the hotel, to find ourselves in the well-remembered long, low room wherein we had spent the evening a few months before. It was now furnished with a bar, the flimsy partitions had been knocked out, and evidently additions had been constructed beyond the various closed doors. The most conspicuous single thing was a huge bulletin board occupying one whole end. It was written over closely with hundreds and hundreds of names. Several men were laboriously spelling them out. This, we were given to understand, was a sort of register of the overland immigrants; and by its means many parties obtained first news of scattered members.

The man behind the bar looked vaguely familiar to me, but I could not place him.

"Where's the proprietor of this place?" I asked him.

He indicated a short, blowsy, truculent-looking individual who was, at the moment, staring out the window.

"There used to be an Italian——" I began.

The barkeeper uttered a short barking laugh as he turned to attend to a customer.

"He found the climate bad for his heart—and sold out!" said he.

On the wall opposite was posted a number of printed and written handbills. We stopped idly to examine them. They had in general to do with lost property, stolen horses, and rewards for the apprehension of various individuals. One struck us in particular. It was issued by a citizens' committee of San Francisco, and announced a general reward for the capture of any member of the "Hounds."

"Looks as if they'd got tired of that gang down there," Johnny observed. "They were ruling the roost when we left. Do you know, I saw one of those fellows this afternoon—perhaps you remember him—a man with a queer sort of blue scar over one cheekbone. I swear I saw him in San Francisco. There's our chance to make some money, Jim."

The proprietor of the hotel turned to look at Johnny curiously, and several of the loafers drinking at the bar glanced in the direction of his clear young voice. We went on reading and enjoying the notices, some of which were very quaint. Suddenly the door burst open to admit a big man followed closely by a motley rabble. The leader was a red-faced, burly, whiskered individual, with a red beard and matted hair. As he turned I saw a star-shaped blue scar above his cheekbone.

"Where's the —— —— —— that is going to make some money out of arresting me?" he roared, swinging his huge form ostentatiously toward the centre of the room.

I confessed I was aghast, and completely at a loss. A row was evidently unavoidable, and the odds were against us. Almost at the instant the door came open, Johnny, without waiting for hostile demonstration, jerked his Colt's revolvers from their holsters. With one bound he reached the centre of the room, and thrust the muzzles beneath the bully's nose. His black eyes were snapping.

"Shut up, you hound!" he said in a low, even voice. "I wouldn't condescend to make money out of your miserable carcass, except at a glue factory. And if you or your friends so much as wink an eyelid, I'll put you in shape for it."

Caught absolutely by surprise, the "Hound" stared fascinated into the pistol barrels, his jaw dropped, his face redder than ever, his eyes ridiculously protruding. I had recovered my wits and had backed against the bulletin board, a revolver in either hand, keeping an eye on the general company. Those who had burst in with the bully had stopped frozen in their tracks. The others were interested, but not particularly excited.

"I'm going to stay in this camp," Johnny advised crisply, "and I'm not going to be bothered by big bluffs like you. I warn you, and all like you, to let me alone and keep away from me. You stay in camp, or you can leave camp, just as you please, but I warn you that I shoot you next time I lay eyes on you. Now, about face! March!"

Johnny's voice had an edge of steel. The big man obeyed orders implicitly. He turned slowly, and sneaked out the door. His followers shambled toward the bar. Johnny passed them rather contemptuously under the review of his snapping eyes, and they shambled a trifle faster. Then, with elaborate nonchalance, we sauntered out.

"My Lord, Johnny!" I cried when we had reached the street, "that was fine! I didn't know you had it in you!"

"Damn the luck!" he cried, kicking a tin can. "Oh, damn!"

He muttered to himself a moment, then turned to me with humorous despair.

"What a stupid, useless mess!" he cried. "The minute that fellow came into the room I saw we were let in for a row; so I went at it quick before he had got organized. He didn't expect that. He thought he'd have to work us into it."

"It certainly got him," said I.

"But it just starts us all wrong here," complained Johnny. "We are marked men."

"We'll just have to look out for him a little. I don't believe he's really dangerous. He looks to me a lot like a bluffer."

"Oh, him!" said Johnny contemputously, "he doesn't worry me any. It's all the rest of them. I've practically challenged all the hard cases in camp, don't you see? I'm no longer an inconspicuous newcomer. Every tough character with any real nerve will want to tackle me now, just to try me out."

From the impulsive and unanalytical Johnny this was surprising enough, and my face must have showed it.

"I've seen it worked out in my part of the country," he explained sombrely. "I don't want to bother with that sort of thing. I'm a peaceable citizen. Now I've got to walk around on tiptoe all the time watching for trouble. Oh, damn!"

"If you're afraid——" I began.

"I'm not afraid," said Johnny so simply that I believed him at once. "But I'm annoyed. And of course you recognized that barkeeper."

"I thought I'd seen him before, but I don't remember just where."

"He's one of those fellows we fired out of our canoe down at Chagres. You can bet he doesn't love us any!"

"You move along to Porcupine to-morrow," I suggested. "I can look after Yank all right. They won't bother me."

Johnny walked for some steps in silence.

"No, they won't bother you," he repeated slowly.

He thought for a moment, then he threw back his head. "But look here, Jim," he said briskly, "you forget. I told that fellow and his friends that I was going to live in this place. I can't leave now."

"Nonsense," said I. "What do you care for that gang?"

"It would look like running away. No, I certainly don't intend to leave now."



CHAPTER XXIX

THE CHALLENGE

We went out to see Yank, with the full intention of spending the evening and cheering him up. He was dozing, restless, waking and sleeping by fits and starts. We sat around in the awkward fashion peculiar to very young boys in the sickroom; and then, to our vast relief, were shoved out by Senora Morena. With her we held a whispered conversation outside, and completed satisfactory arrangements for Yank's keep. She was a chuckling, easy-going, motherly sort of creature, and we were very lucky to have her. Then we returned in the gathering dusk to our camp under the trees across the way.

A man rose from a seat against a tree trunk.

"Good evenin', stranger," said he.

"Good evening," responded Johnny guardedly.

"You are the man who stuck up Scar-face Charley in Morton's place, ain't you?"

"What's that to you?" replied Johnny. "Are you a friend of his?"

His habitual air of young carelessness had fallen from him; his eye was steady and frosty, his face set in stern lines. Before my wondering eyes he had grown ten years older in the last six hours. The other was lounging toward us—a short, slight man, with flaxen moustache and eyebrows, a colourless face, pale blue eyes, and a bald forehead from which the hat had been pushed back. He was chewing a straw.

"Well, I was just inquirin' in a friendly sort of way," replied the newcomer peaceably.

"I don't know you," stated Johnny shortly, "nor who you're friends to, nor your camp. I deny your right to ask questions. Good night."

"Well, good night," agreed the other, still peaceable. "I reckon I gather considerable about you, anyhow." He turned away. "I had a notion from what I heard that you was sort of picked on, and I dropped round, sort of friendly like; but Lord love you! I don't care how many of you desperadoes kill each other. Go to it, and good riddance!" He cast his pale blue eyes on Johnny's rigid figure. "Also, go to hell!" he remarked dispassionately.

Johnny stared at him puzzled.

"Hold on!" he called, after a moment. "Then you're not a friend of this Hound?"

The stranger turned in slow surprise.

"Me? What are you talking about?" He looked from one to the other of us, then returned the few steps he had taken. "I believe you don't know me. I'm Randall, Danny Randall."

"Yes?" puzzled Johnny.

"Of Sonoma," added Randall.

"I suppose I should know you, but I'm afraid I don't," confessed Johnny.

Randall turned back to the tree beneath which lay our effects.

"I believe I'll just have a cup of coffee with you boys," said he.

We blew up the fire, scoured the frying pan, made ourselves food. Randall brought a pail of water. We all ate together, without much conversation; then lit our pipes and piled on dry wood to make a brighter friendship fire.

"Now, boys," said Randall, "I'm going to ask you some questions; and you can answer me or not, just as you please. Only I'll say, it isn't just curiosity."

Johnny, who was studying him covertly from beneath the shadow of his hat, nodded briefly, but said nothing.

"How long have you been in the mines?"

"Since March."

"Since March!" echoed Randall, as though a little bewildered at this reply. "Yet you never heard——What camp?"

Johnny studied a while.

"Hangman's Gulch for six weeks," said he. "Then just prospecting."

"Where?"

"I don't believe I'll answer that question," replied Johnny slowly.

"But somewhere back in the hills?" persisted Randall.

"Somewhere back in the hills," agreed Johnny.

"Seems to me——" I broke in, but Johnny silenced me with a gesture. He was watching Randall intently, and thinking hard.

"Then you have been out of it for three months or so. That explains it. Now I don't mind telling you I came up here this evening to size you up. I heard about your row with Scar-face Charley, and I wanted to see whether you were just another fighting desperado or an honest man. Well, I'm satisfied. I'm not going to ask you if you have much gold with you, for you wouldn't tell me; but if you have, keep it with you. If you don't, you'll lose it. Keep in the middle of the road, and out of dark places. This is a tough camp; but there are a lot of us good men, too, and my business is to get us all to know each other. Things are getting bad, and we've got to get together. That's why I came up to see you. Are you handy with a gun?" he asked abruptly.

"Fair," said Johnny.

"You need to be. Let's see if you are. Stand up. Try to get the draw on me. Now!"

Johnny reached for his pistol, but before his hand was fairly on the butt, Randall had thrust the muzzle of a small revolver beneath his nose. His pale blue eyes had lit with concentration, his bleached eyebrows were drawn together. For an instant the thought flashed across my mind that this was a genuine hold-up; and I am sure Johnny caught the same suspicion, for his figure stiffened. Then Randall dropped his hand.

"Very pretty," said Johnny coolly. "How did you do that? I didn't catch your motion."

"From the sleeve," said Randall. "It's difficult, but it's pretty, as you say; and if you learn to draw from the sleeve, I'll guarantee you'll get the draw on your man every time."

"Show me," said Johnny simply.

"That gun of yours is too big; it's a holster weapon. Here, take this."

He handed Johnny a beautifully balanced small Colt's revolver, engraved, silver-plated, with polished rosewood handles. This he showed Johnny how to stow away in the sleeve, how to arrange it, how to grasp it, and the exact motion in snatching it away.

"It takes practice, lots of it, and then more of it," said Randall. "It's worse than useless unless you get it just right. If you made a mistake at the wrong time, the other man would get you sure."

"Where can I get one of these?" asked Johnny.

"Good!" Randall approved his decision. "You see the necessity. You can't. But a derringer is about as good, and Jones has them for sale. Now as for your holster gun: the whole trick of quick drawing is to throw your right shoulder forward and drag the gun from the holster with one forward sweep. Don't lift it up and out. This way!" He snapped his hand past his hip and brought it away armed.

"Pretty," repeated Johnny.

"Don't waste much powder and ball shooting at a mark," advised Randall. "It looks nice to cut out the ace of hearts at ten yards, but it doesn't mean much. If you can shoot at all, you can shoot straight enough to hit a man at close range. Practise the draw." He turned to me. "You'd better practise, too. Every man's got to take care of himself these days. But you're not due for trouble same as your friend is."

"I'm obliged to you," said Johnny.

"You are not. Now it's up to you. I judged you didn't know conditions here, and I thought it only right to warn you. There's lots of good fellows in this camp; and some of the hard cases are a pretty good sort. Just keep organized, that's all."

"Now I wonder who Danny Randall is!" speculated Johnny after our visitor had departed. "He talked as though we ought to know all about it. I'm going to find out the first fellow I get acquainted with."

Next morning we asked the Morenas who was Danny Randall.

"El diabolo," replied Morena shortly; and trudged obstinately away to his work without vouchsafing further information.

"Which is interesting, but indefinite," said Johnny.

We found Yank easier in body, and embarked on the sea of patience in which he was to float becalmed until his time was up. In reply to his inquiries as to our plans, we told him we were resting a few days, which was the truth. Then we went up to town and made two purchases; a small tent, and a derringer pistol. They cost us three hundred and fifty dollars. It was the quiet time of day; the miners had gone to work, and most of the gentlemen of leisure were not yet about. Nevertheless a dozen or so sat against the walls, smoking paper cigarettos. They all looked at us curiously; and several nodded at Johnny in a brief, tentative sort of fashion.

The rest of the day, and of several days following, we spent in putting up our tent, ditching it, arranging our cooking affairs, building rough seats, and generally making ourselves comfortable. We stretched these things to cover as long a space of time as possible, for we secretly dreaded facing the resumption of the old grind, and postponed it as long as we could. A good deal of the time we spent at Yank's bedside, generally sitting silent and constrained, to the mutual discomfort of all three of us, I am sure. At odd intervals we practised conscientiously and solemnly at the "draw." We would stand facing each other, the nipples of our revolvers uncapped, and would, at the given word, see who could cover the other first. We took turns at giving the word. At first we were not far apart; but Johnny quickly passed me in skill. I am always somewhat clumsy, but my friend was naturally quick and keen at all games of skill or dexterity. He was the sort of man who could bowl, or play pool, or billiards, or anything else rather better than the average accustomed player the first time he tried. He turned card tricks deftly. At the end of our three days' loafing he caught me at the end of his pistol so regularly that there ceased to be any contest in it. I never did get the sleeve trick; but then, I never succeeded in fooling the merest infant with any of my attempts at legerdemain. Johnny could flip that little derringer out with a twist of his supple wrist as neatly as a snake darts its forked tongue. For ten minutes at a time he practised it, over and over, as regularly as well-oiled machinery.

"But that proves nothing as to how it would work out in real action," said Johnny thoughtfully.

The afternoon of the third day, while we were resting from the heat beneath the shade of our tree, we were approached by three men.



"Howdy, boys," said the first. "We hain't seen you around camp lately, and thought mebbe you'd flew."

"We are still here," replied Johnny with smooth politeness. "As you see, we have been fixing our quarters to stay here."

"Scar-face Charley is here, too," observed the spokesman, "and he wanted me to tell you that he is going to be at the Bella Union at eight this evenin', and he wants to know, will he see you? and to come heeled."

"Thank you, gentlemen," replied Johnny quietly. "If by accident you should happen to see the desperado in question—who, I assume, can be in no way your friend—I hope you will tell him that I, too, will be at the Bella Union at eight o'clock, and that I will come heeled."

"You'll be comin' alone?" said the man, "or p'rhaps yore friend——"

"My friend, as you call him, is simply a miner, and has nothing to do with this," interrupted Johnny emphatically.

"I thank you, sir," said the spokesman, rising.

The other two, who had throughout said no word, followed his example.

"Do you know Danny Randall?" asked Johnny as they moved off.

If he had presented his derringer under their noses, they could not have stopped more suddenly. They stared at each other a moment.

"Is he a friend of yours?" inquired the spokesman after an uncertain moment.

"He likes fair play," said Johnny enigmatically.

The trio moved off in the direction of town.

"We don't know any more about Danny Randall than we did," observed Johnny, "but I tried a shot in the dark."

"Nevertheless," I told him, "I'm going to be there; and you want to make up your mind to just that."

"You will come, of course," agreed Johnny. "I suppose I cannot keep you from that. But Jim," he commanded earnestly, "you must swear to keep out of the row, unless it develops into a general one; and you must swear not to speak to me or make any sign no matter what happens. I must play a lone hand."

He was firm on this point; and in the end I gave my promise, to his evident relief.

"This is our visitors' day, evidently," he observed. "Here come two more men. One of them is the doctor; I'd know that hat two miles."

"The other is our friend Danny Randall," said I.

Dr. Rankin greeted us with a cordiality I had not suspected in him. Randall nodded in his usual diffident fashion, and slid into the oak shadow, where he squatted on his heels.

"About this Scar-face Charley," he said abruptly, "I hear he's issued his defi, and you've taken him up. Do you know anything about this sort of thing?"

"Not a bit," admitted Johnny frankly. "Is it a duel; and are you gentleman here to act as my seconds?"

"It is not," stated the downright doctor. "It's a barroom murder and you cannot get around it; and I, for one, don't try. But now you're in for it, and you've got to go through with it."

"I intend to," said Johnny.

"It's not precisely that," objected Danny Randall, "for, d'ye see, he's sent you warning."

"It's about all the warning you'll get!" snorted the doctor.

"There's a sort of rule about it," persisted Randall. "And that's what I'm here to tell you. He'll try to come up on you suddenly, probably from behind; and he'll say 'draw and defend yourself,' and shoot you as soon after that as he can. You want to see him first, that's all."

"Thanks," said Johnny.

"And," exploded the doctor, "if you don't kill that fellow, by the Eternal, when you get a chance——"

"You'll give him a pill, Doctor," interrupted Randall, with a little chuckle. "But look here," he said to Johnny, "after all, this sort of a mess isn't required of you. You say the word and I'll take on this Scar-face Charley and run him out of town. He's a good deal of a pest."

"Thank you," said Johnny stiffly; "I intend to paddle my own canoe."

Randall nodded.

"I don't know as we can help you any more," said he. "I just thought you ought to be on to the way it's done."

"I'm obliged to you," said Johnny warmly. "The only doubt in my mind was when I was privileged to open."

"I'd pot him through the window with a shotgun first chance I got," stated the doctor; "that sort of a ruffian is just like a mad dog."

"Of course you would, Doctor," said Randall with just the faintest suspicion of sarcasm in his voice. "Well, I guess we'll be toddling."

But I wanted some information, and I meant to have it.

"Who is this Scar-face Charley," I asked.

"Got me," replied Randall; "you fellows seemed to recognize him. Only he's one of the gang, undoubtedly."

"The gang?"

"Oh, the general run of hangers-on. Nobody knows how they live, but every one suspects. Some of them work, but not many. There are a heap of disappearances that no one knows anything about; and every once in a while a man is found drowned and floating; floating mind you!"

"What of that?" I asked; "drowned bodies usually float."

"There's no miner in these diggings but has gold enough in his belt to sink him. If a man floats, he's been robbed, and you can tie to that reasoning. And the fellows are all well mounted, and given to mysterious disappearances."

"In other words," broke in the doctor, "they are an organized band of cut-throats and highway robbers making this honest camp a headquarters."

"Pshaw, Doctor," said Randall, "that's by no means certain."

"It's certain enough," insisted the doctor.

"I should think the miners would drive them out," I said.

"Drive them out!" cried the doctor bitterly; "they're too busy, and their own toes haven't been trodden on, and they're too willing to let well enough alone so as not to be interrupted in their confounded digging for gold."

"They're not organized and they are quite justly unwilling to get in a row with that gang when they know they'd be killed," stated Randall quietly. "They're getting on 'well enough,' and they'll continue to be run by this lot of desperadoes until something desperate happens. They want to be let alone."

The doctor recovered his equanimity with an effort.

"They present the curious spectacle," said he thoughtfully, "of the individual man in a new untrammelled liberty trying to escape his moral obligations to society. He escapes them for a while, but they are there; and in the end he must pay in violence."

Randall laughed and arose.

"If the doctor is going to begin that sort of thing, I'm going," said he.

Our visitors took their departure.

"Oh, Doctor, one moment!" I called; then, as he returned. "Tell me, who and what is Danny Randall?"

"Danny Randall," said the doctor, a humorous twinkle coming into his eyes, "is a gentleman of fortune."

"And now we know a lot more than we did before!" said Johnny, as we watched the receding figures.



CHAPTER XXX

THE FIGHT

We ate a very silent supper, washed our dishes methodically, and walked up to town. The Bella Union was the largest of the three gambling houses—a log and canvas structure some forty feet long by perhaps twenty wide. A bar extended across one end, and the gaming tables were arranged down the middle. A dozen oil lamps with reflectors furnished illumination.

All five tables were doing a brisk business; when we paused at the door for a preliminary survey, the bar was lined with drinkers, and groups of twos and threes were slowly sauntering here and there or conversing at the tops of their voices with many guffaws. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. Johnny stepped just inside the door, moved sideways, and so stood with his back to the wall. His keen eyes went from group to group slowly, resting for a moment in turn on each of the five impassive gamblers and their lookouts, on the two barkeepers, and then one by one on the men with whom the place was crowded. Following his, my glance recognized at a corner of the bar Danny Randall with five rough-looking miners. He caught my eye and nodded. No one else appeared to notice us, though I imagined the noise of the place sank and rose again at the first moment of our entrance.

"Jim," said Johnny to me quietly, "there's Danny Randall at the other end of the room. Go join him. I want you to leave me to play my own game."

I started to object.

"Please do as I say," insisted Johnny. "I can take care of myself unless there's a general row. In that case all my friends are better together."

Without further protest I left him, and edged my way to the little group at the end of the bar. Randall nodded to me as I came up, and motioned to the barkeeper to set me out a glass, but said nothing. Ours was the only lot away from the gaming tables not talking. We sipped our drink and watched Johnny.

After surveying coolly the room, Johnny advanced to the farther of the gambling tables, and began to play. His back was toward the entrance. The game was roulette, and Johnny tossed down his bets methodically, studying with apparent absorption each shift of the wheel. To all appearance he was intent on the game, and nothing else; and he talked and laughed with his neighbours and the dealer as though his spirit were quite carefree.

For ten minutes we watched. Then a huge figure appeared in the blackness of the doorway, slipped through, and instantly to one side, so that his back was to the wall. Scar-face Charley had arrived.

He surveyed the place as we had done, almost instantly caught sight of Johnny, and immediately began to make his way across the room through the crowds of loungers. Johnny was laying a bet, bending over the table, joking with the impassive dealer, his back turned to the door, totally oblivious of his enemy's approach. I started forward, instantly realized the hopelessness of either getting quickly through that crowd or of making myself heard, and leaned back, clutching the rail with both hands. Johnny was hesitating, his hand hovering uncertainly above the marked squares of the layout, in doubt exactly where to bet. Scar-face Charley shouldered his way through the loungers and reached the clear space immediately behind his unconscious victim. He stopped for an instant, squared his shoulders, and took one step forward. Johnny dropped his chips on the felt layout, contemplated his choice an instant—and suddenly whirled on his heel in a lightning about-face.

Although momentarily startled by this unexpected evidence that Johnny was not so far off guard as he had seemed, the desperado's hand dropped swiftly to the butt of his pistol. At the same instant Johnny's arm snapped forward in the familiar motion of drawing from the sleeve. The motion started clean and smooth, but half through, caught, dragged, halted. I gasped aloud, but had time for no more than that; Scar-face Charley's revolver was already on the leap. Then at last Johnny's derringer appeared, apparently as the result of a desperate effort. Almost with the motion, it barked, and the big man whirled to the floor, his pistol, already at half raise, clattering away. The whole episode from the beginning occupied the space of two eye-winks. Probably no one but myself and Danny Randall could have caught the slight hitch in Johnny's draw; and indeed I doubt if anybody saw whence he had snatched the derringer.

A complete silence fell. It could have lasted only an instant; but Johnny seized that instant.

"Has this man any friends here?" he asked clearly.

His head was back, and his snapping black eyes seemed to see everywhere at once.

No one answered or stirred. Johnny held them for perhaps ten seconds, then deliberately turned back to the table.

"That's my bet on the even," said he. "Let her roll!"

The gambler lifted his face, white in the brilliant illumination directly over his head, and I thought to catch a flicker of something like admiration in his passionless eyes. Then with his left hand he spun the wheel.

The soft, dull whir and tiny clicking of the ball as it rebounded from the metal grooves struck across the tense stillness. As though this was the releasing signal, a roar of activity burst forth. Men all talked at once. The other tables and the bar were deserted, and everybody crowded down toward the lower end of the room. Danny Randall and his friends rushed determinedly to the centre of disturbance. Some men were carrying out Scar-face Charley. Others were talking excitedly. A little clear space surrounded the roulette table, at which, as may be imagined, Johnny was now the only player. Quite methodically he laid three more bets.

"I think that's enough for now," he told the dealer pleasantly, and turned away.

"Hullo! Randall! hullo! Frank!" he greeted us. "I've just won three bets straight. Let's have a drink. Bring your friends," he told Randall.

We turned toward the bar and way was instantly made for us. Johnny poured himself a big drink of whiskey. A number of curious men, mere boys most of them, had crowded close after us, and were standing staring at Johnny with a curiosity they made slight attempt to conceal. Johnny suddenly turned to them, holding high his whiskey in a hand as steady as a rock.

"Here's to crime, boys!" he said, and drank it down at a gulp. Then he stood staring them uncomprisingly in the face, until they had slunk away. He called for and drank another whiskey, then abruptly moved toward the door.

"I think I'll go turn in," said he.

At the door he stopped.

"Good-night," he said to Randall and his friends, who had followed us. "No, I am obliged to you," he replied to a suggestion, "but I need no escort," and he said it so firmly that all but Randall went back.

"I'm going to your camp with you, whether you need an escort or not," said the latter.

Without a word Johnny walked away down the street, very straight. We hurried to catch up with him; and just as we did so he collapsed to the ground and was suddenly and violently sick. As I helped him to his feet, I could feel that his arm was trembling violently.

"Lord, fellows! I'm ashamed," he gasped a little hysterically. "I didn't know I had so little nerve!"

"Nerve!" suddenly roared Danny Randall; "confound your confounded impudence! If I ever hear you say another word like that, I'll put a head on you, if it's the last act of my life! You're the gamest little chicken in this roost, and I'll make you beg like a hound if you say you aren't!"

Johnny laughed a little uncertainly over this contradiction.

"Did I kill him?" he asked.

"No, worse luck; just bored him through the collarbone. That heavy little derringer ball knocked him out."

"I'm glad of that," said Johnny.

"Which I am not," stated Danny Randall with emphasis. "You ought to have killed him."

"Thanks to you I wasn't killed myself. I couldn't have hoped to get the draw on him with my holster gun. He is as quick as a snake."

"I thought you were going to bungle it," said Randall. "What was the matter?"

"Front sight caught at the edge of my sleeve. I had to tear it loose by main strength. I'm going to file it off. What's the use of a front sight at close range?"

I heaved a deep sigh.

"Well, I don't want ever to be so scared again," I confessed. "Will you tell me, by all that's holy, why you turned your back on the door?"

"Well," said Johnny seriously, "I wanted to get him close to me. If I had shown him that I'd seen him when he first came in the door, he'd have opened fire at once. And I'm a rotten shot. But I figured that if he thought I didn't see him, he'd come across the room to me."

"But he nearly got you by surprise."

"Oh, no," said Johnny; "I saw him all the time. I got his reflection from the glass over that picture of the beautiful lady sitting on the Old Crow Whiskey barrel. That's why I picked out that table."

"My son," cried Danny Randall delightedly, "you're a true sport. You've got a head, you have!"

"Well," said Johnny, "I figured I'd have to do something; I'm such a rotten shot."



CHAPTER XXXI

THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

We slept late the following morning, and awoke tired, as though we had been on a long journey.

"Now," said Johnny, when our after-breakfast pipes had been lit, "we've got to get together. There's two serious questions before the house: the first and most important is, who and what is Danny Randall?"

"I agree with you there," said I heartily.

"And the second is, what are we going to do with ourselves?"

"I'm going to begin mining," I stated.

"All right, old strong-arm; I am not. I'm dead sick of cricking my back and blistering my hands. It isn't my kind of work; and the only reason I ever thought it was is because the stuff we dig is called gold."

"You aren't going to lie down?" I cried incredulously.

"No, old sport, I'm not going to lie down. I came out here to make my fortune; but I don't know that I've got to dig gold to do that."

"What are you going to do?"

"That I don't know," confessed Johnny, "but I'll be able to inform you in a few days. I suppose you'll be going back to the Porcupine?"

"I don't know about that," said I seriously. "I don't believe the Porcupine is any richer than these diggings, and it's mighty uncertain. I believe a man's more apt to keep what he gets here, and there's a lot more company, and——"

"In other words, you're going to stick around old Yank or know the reason why!" interrupted Johnny with a little smile.

I flushed, hesitated, then blurted out: "Well, yes. I shouldn't be easy about him here by himself. It strikes me this is a tough camp, and almost anything's likely to happen."

"I feel the same way," confessed Johnny. "We're all partners. All right; 'stick' it is. We'll have to be mighty plausible to keep Yank quiet. That's agreed," he grinned. "Now I'm going up to town to find out about Danny Randall, and incidentally to look around for something to do. You're a good steady liar; you go over and talk to Yank."

We separated until noon. I had no great difficulty with Yank, either because I was, as Johnny said, a plausible liar, or because Yank was secretly glad to have us near. After visiting with him a while I took the axe and set about the construction of a cradle. Johnny returned near twelve o'clock to find me at this useful occupation.

"As to Danny Randall," he began at once, squatting near by: "Origin lost in mists of obscurity. First known in this country as guide to a party of overland immigrants before the gold discovery. One of the original Bear Flag revolutionists. Member of Fremont's raiders in the south. Showed up again at Sonoma and headed a dozen forays after the horse-thieving Indians and half-breeds in the San Joaquin. Seems now to follow the mines. Guaranteed the best shot with rifle or pistol in the state. Guaranteed the best courage and the quietest manners in the state. Very eminent and square in his profession. That's his entire history."

"What is his profession?" I asked.

"He runs the Bella Union."

"A gambler?" I cried, astonished.

"Just so—a square gambler."

I digested this in silence for a moment.

"Did you discover anything for yourself?" I asked at last.

"Best job ever invented," said Johnny triumphantly, "at three ounces a day; and I can't beat that at your beastly digging."

"Yes?" I urged.

"I invented it myself, too," went on Johnny proudly. "You remember what Randall—or the doctor—said about the robberies, and the bodies of the drowned men floating? Well, every man carries his dust around in a belt because he dare not do anything else with it. I do myself, and so do you; and you'll agree that it weighs like the mischief. So I went to Randall and I suggested that we start an express service to get the stuff out to bank with some good firm in San Francisco. He fell in with the idea in a minute. My first notion was that we take it right through to San Francisco ourselves; but he says he can make satisfactory arrangements to send it in from Sacramento. That's about sixty miles; and we'll call it a day's hard ride through this country, with a change of horses. So now I'm what you might call an express messenger—at three good ounces a day."

"But you'll be killed and robbed!" I cried.

Johnny's eyes were dancing.

"Think of the fun!" said he.

"You're a rotten shot," I reminded him.

"I'm to practise, under Danny Randall, from now until the first trip."

"When is that?"

"Do you think we'll advertise the date? Of course I'd tell you, Jim; but honestly I don't know yet."

Since the matter seemed settled, and Johnny delighted, I said no more. My cradle occupied me for three days longer. In that length of time Johnny banged away an immense quantity of ammunition, much of it under the personal supervision of Danny Randall. The latter had his own ideas as to the proper practice. He utterly refused to let Johnny shoot at a small mark or linger on his aim.

"It's only fairly accurate work you want, but quick," said he. "If you practise always getting hold of your revolver the same way, and squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it, you'll do. If you run against robbers it isn't going to be any target match."

When my cradle was finished, I went prospecting with a pan; and since this was that golden year 1849, and the diggings were neither crowded nor worked out, I soon found 'colour.' There I dragged my cradle, and set quite happily to work. Since I performed all my own labour, the process seemed slow to me after the quick results of trained cooperation; yet my cleanings at night averaged more than my share used to be under the partnership. So I fell into settled work, well content. A week later Johnny rode up on a spirited and beautiful horse, proud as could be over his mount.

He confided to me that it was one of the express horses; that the first trip would be very soon; and that if I desired to send out my own savings, I could do so. I was glad to do this, even though the rates were high; and we easily persuaded Yank of the advisability. Nobody anticipated any danger from this first trip, for the simple reason that few knew anything about it. Randall and his friends made up the amount that could be carried by the three men. For the first time I learned that Johnny had companions. They started from our own tent, a little after sundown. Indeed, they ate their supper with us, while their beautiful horses, head high, stared out into the growing darkness. One of the express riders was a slight, dark youth whom I had never seen before. In the other I was surprised to recognize Old Hickory Pine. He told me his people had "squatted" not far from Sacramento, but that he had come up into the hills on summons by Danny Randall. The fact impressed me anew as to Randall's wide knowledge, for the Pines had not been long in the country.

The trip went through without incident. Johnny returned four days later aglow with the joy of that adventurous ride through the dark. Robbers aside, I acknowledge I should not have liked that job. I am no horseman, and I confess that at full speed I am always uneasy as to how a four-hoofed animal is going successfully to plant all four of them. And these three boys, for they were nothing else, had to gallop the thirty miles of the road to Sacramento that lay in the mountains before dawn caught them in the defiles.

Johnny seemed to glory in it, however. Danny Randall had arranged for a change of horses; and the three express riders liked to dash up at full speed to the relay station, fling themselves and their treasure bags from one beast to the other, and be off again with the least possible expenditure of time. The incoming animal had hardly come to a stand before the fresh animal was off. There could have been no real occasion for quite so much haste; but they liked to do it. The trips were made at irregular intervals; and the riders left camp at odd times. Indeed, no hour of the twenty-four was unlikely to be that of their start. Each boy carried fifty pounds of gold dust distributed in four pouches. This was a heavy weight, but it was compensated for to some extent by the fact that they rode very light saddles. Thus every trip the enormous sum of thirty-five thousand dollars went out in charge of the three.

The first half dozen journeys were more or less secret, so that the express service did not become known to the general public. Then the news inevitably leaked out. Danny Randall thereupon openly received shipments and gave receipts at the Bella Union. It seemed to me only a matter of time before the express messengers should be waylaid, for the treasure they carried was worth any one's while. I spoke to Randall about it one day.

"If Amijo or Murietta or Dick Temple were in this part of the country, I'd agree with you," said he seriously, "but they are not, and there's nobody in this lot of cheap desperadoes around here that has the nerve. Those three boys have a big reputation as fighters; their horses are good; they constantly vary their route and their times of starting; and Johnny in especial has a foxy head on him."

"The weak point is the place they change horses," said I.

Randall looked at me quickly, as though surprised.

"Why, that's true," said he; "not a doubt of it. But I've got five armed men there to look after just that. And another thing you must remember: they know that Danny Randall is running this show."

Certainly, thought I, Danny at least appreciates himself; and yet, after all, I do not think he in any way exaggerated the terror his name inspired.



CHAPTER XXXII

ITALIAN BAR

As now we are all settled down to our various occupations, Yank of patience, Johnny of delighted adventuring, and myself of dogged industry, it might be well to give you some sort of a notion of Italian Bar, as this new camp was called. I saw a great deal of it, more than I really wished, for out of working hours I much frequented it in the vague hope of keeping tabs on its activities for Johnny's sake.

It was situated on one of the main overland trails, and that was possibly the only reason its rich diggings had not been sooner discovered—it was too accessible! The hordes of immigrants dragged through the dusty main street, sometimes in an almost unending procession. More of them hereafter; they were in general a sad lot. Some of them were always encamped in the flats below town; and about one of the stores a number of them could be seen trying to screw their resolution up to paying the appalling prices for necessities. The majority had no spare money, and rarely any spirit left; and nobody paid much attention to them except to play practical jokes on them. Very few if any of this influx stopped at Italian Bar. Again it was too accessible. They had their vision fixed hypnotically on the West, and westward they would push until they bumped the Pacific Ocean. Of course a great many were no such dumb creatures, but were capable, self-reliant men who knew what they were about and where they were going. Nobody tried to play any practical jokes on them.

Of the regular population I suppose three fourths were engaged in gold washing. The miners did not differ from those of their class anywhere else; that is to say, they were of all nationalities, all classes of life, and all degrees of moral responsibility. They worked doggedly and fast in order to get as much done as possible before the seasonal rains. When night fell the most of them returned to their cabins and slept the sleep of the weary; with a weekly foray into town of a more or less lurid character. They had no time for much else, in their notion; and on that account were, probably unconsciously, the most selfish community I ever saw. There was a great deal of sickness, and many deaths, but unless a man had a partner or a friend to give him some care, he might die in his cabin for all the attention any one else would pay him. In the same spirit only direct personal interest would arouse in any of them the least indignation over the only too frequent killings and robberies.

"They found a man shot by the Upper Bend this morning," remarks one to his neighbour.

"That so? Who was he?" asks the other.

"Don't know. Didn't hear," is the reply.

The barroom or street killings, which averaged in number at least two or three a week, while furnishing more excitement, aroused very little more real interest. Open and above-board homicides of that sort were always the result of differences of opinion. If the victim had a friend, the latter might go gunning for his pal's slayer; but nobody had enough personal friends to elevate any such row to the proportions of a general feud.

All inquests were set aside until Sunday. A rough and ready public meeting invariably brought in the same verdict—"justifiable self-defence." At these times, too, popular justice was dispensed, but carelessly and not at all in the spirit of the court presided over by John Semple at Hangman's Gulch. A general air of levity characterized these occasions, which might strike as swift and deadly a blow as a shaft of lightning, or might puff away as harmlessly as a summer zephyr. Many a time, until I learned philosophically to stay away, did my blood boil over the haphazard way these men had of disposing of some poor creature's destinies.

"Here's a Mex thief," observed the chair. "What do you want done with him?"

"Move we cut off his ears!" yelled a voice from the back of the crowd.

"Make it fifty lashes!" shouted another.

A wrangle at once started between the advocates of cropping and the whip. The crowd wearied of it.

"Let the —— —— —— go!" suggested someone.

And this motion was carried with acclamation. No evidence was offered or asked as to the extent of the man's guilt, or indeed if he was guilty at all!

The meeting had a grim sense of humour, and enjoyed nothing more than really elaborate foolery. Such as, for example, the celebrated case of Pio Chino's bronco.

Pio Chino was a cargador running a train of pack-mules into some back-country camp. His bell mare was an ancient white animal with long shaggy hair, ewe neck, bulging joints, a placid wall eye, the full complement of ribs, and an extraordinarily long Roman nose ending in a pendulous lip. Yet fifteen besotted mules thought her beautiful, and followed her slavishly, in which fact lay her only value. Now somebody, probably for a joke, "lifted" this ancient wreck from poor Chino on the ground that it had never been Chino's property anyway. Chino, with childlike faith in the dignity of institutions, brought the matter before the weekly court.

That body took charge with immense satisfaction. It appointed lawyers for the prosecution and the defence.

Prosecution started to submit Chino's claim.

Defence immediately objected on the ground that Chino, being a person of colour, was not qualified to testify against a white man.

This point was wrangled over with great relish for an hour or more. Then two solemn individuals were introduced as experts to decide whether Chino was a man of colour, or, as the prosecution passionately maintained, a noble, great-minded and patriotic California member of the Caucasian race.

"Gentlemen," the court addressed this pair, "is there any infallible method by which your science is able to distinguish between a nigger and a white man?"

"There is," answered one of the "experts."

"What?"

"The back teeth of a white man have small roots reaching straight down," expounded the "expert" solemnly, "while those of a negro have roots branching in every direction."

"And how do you expect to determine this case?"

"By extracting one or more of the party's back teeth," announced the "expert" gravely, at the same time producing a huge pair of horseshoeing nippers.

Chino uttered a howl, but was violently restrained from bolting. He was understood to say that he didn't want that mare. I should not have been a bit surprised if they had carried the idea of extraction to a finish; but the counsel for defence interposed, waiving the point. He did not want the fun to come to that sort of a termination.

Prosecution then offered the evidence of Chino's brand. Now that old mare was branded from muzzle to tail, and on both sides. She must have been sold and resold four or five times for every year of her long and useful life. The network of brands was absolutely indecipherable.

"Shave her!" yelled some genius.

That idea caught hold. The entire gathering took an interest in the operation, which half a dozen men performed. They shaved that poor old mare from nose to the tip of her ratlike tail. Not even an eye-winker was left to her. She resembled nothing so much as one of the sluglike little Mexican hairless dogs we had seen on the Isthmus. The brands now showed plainly enough, but were as complicated as ever in appearance. Thunders of mock forensic oratory shook the air. I remember defence acknowledged that in that multiplicity of lines the figure of Chino's brand could be traced; but pointed to the stars of the heavens and the figures of their constellations to prove what could be done by a vivid imagination in evolving fancy patterns. By this time it was late, and court was adjourned until next week.

The following Sunday, after a tremendous legal battle, conducted with the relishing solemnity with which Americans like to take their fooling, it was decided to call in an expert on brands, and a certain California rancher ten miles distant was agreed upon.

"But," objected the defence, "he is a countryman of the complainant. However honest, he will nevertheless sympathize with his own blood. Before the case is put before him, he should view these brands as an unprejudiced observer. I suggest that they be transcribed to paper and submitted to him without explanation."

This appealed to the crowd. The astonished mare was again led out, and careful drawings made of her most remarkable sides. Then the case was again adjourned one week.

On that day the Californian was on hand, very grave, very much dressed up, very flattered at being called as an expert in anything. The drawing was laid before him.

"Don Luis," said the court formally, "what do you, as expert, make of that?"

Don Luis bent his grave Spanish head over the document for some minutes. Then he turned it upside down and examined it again; sideways; the other end. When he looked up a little twinkle of humour lurked deep in his black eyes, but his face was solemn and ceremonious.

"Well, Don Luis," repeated the court, "what do you make of it?"

"Senor," replied Don Luis courteously, "it looks to me like a most excellent map of Sonora."

When the crowd had quieted down after this, the court ordered the animal brought forth.

"May it please y'r honour, the critter got a chill and done died," announced the cadaverous Missourian, to whose care the animal had been confided.

"H'm," said the court. "Well, here's the court's decision in this case. Pio Chino fined one drink for taking up our valuable time; Abe Sellers fined one drink for claiming such an old crow-bait on any grounds; Sam is fined one drink for not putting a blanket on that mare." ("I only got one blanket myself!" cried the grieved Missourian.) "The fines must be paid in to the court at the close of this session."

Hugely tickled, the meeting arose. Pio Chino, to whom the tidings of his bell mare's demise was evidently news, stood the picture of dejected woe. His downcast figure attracted the careless attention of one of the men.

"Here boys!" he yelled, snatching off his hat. "This ain't so damn funny for Chino here!" He passed the hat among the crowd. They tossed in gold, good-naturedly, abundantly, with a laugh. Nobody knows what amount was dumped into the astounded Chino's old sombrero; but the mare was certainly not worth over fifteen dollars. If some one had dragged Chino before that same gathering under unsupported accusation of any sort, it would as cheerfully and thoughtlessly have hung him.

Of the gambling places, one only—that conducted by Danny Randall and called the Bella Union—inspired any sort of confidence. The other two were frequented by a rough, insolent crew, given to sudden silences in presence of newcomers, good-humoured after a wild and disconcerting fashion, plunging heavily at the gaming tables and drinking as heavily at the bars. This is not to imply that any strong line of demarcation existed between the habitues of one or the other of these places. When an inhabitant of Italian Bar started out for relaxation, he visited everything there was to visit, and drifted impartially between Morton's, Randall's Bella Union, and the Empire. There was a good deal of noise and loud talk in any of them; and occasionally a pistol shot. This was generally a signal for most of the bystanders to break out through the doors and windows, and for the gayly inclined to shoot out the lights. The latter feat has often been cited admiringly as testifying to a high degree of marksmanship, but as a matter of fact the wind and concussion from the heavy revolver bullets were quite sufficient to put out any lamp to which the missiles passed reasonably close. Sometimes these affrays resulted in material for the Sunday inquests; but it is astonishing how easily men can miss each other at close range. Most of the shootings were the results of drunken quarrels. For that reason the professed gunmen were rarely involved. One who possessed an established reputation was let alone by the ordinary citizen; and most severely alone by the swaggering bullies, of whom there were not a few. These latter found prey for their queer stripe of vanity among the young, the weak, and the drunken. I do not hesitate to say that any man of determined character could keep out of trouble even in the worst days of the camp, provided he had no tempting wealth, attended to his own affairs, and maintained a quiet though resolute demeanour.

When in camp Johnny and his two companions shone as bright particular stars. They were only boys, and they had blossomed out in wonderful garments. Johnny had a Californian sombrero with steeple crown loaded with silver ornaments, and a pair of Spanish spurs heavily inlaid with the same metal, a Chinese scarf about his neck, and a short jacket embroidered with silver thread. But most astonishing of all was a large off-colour diamond set in a ring, through which he ran the ends of his scarf. Parenthetically, it was from this that he got his sobriquet of Diamond Jack. I had a good deal of fun laughing at Johnny, but he didn't mind.

"This diamond," he pointed out, "is just as good as gold dust, it's easier carried, and I can have some fun out of it."

I am afraid he and Old Hickory Pine and Cal Marsh did a bit of swaggering while in town. They took a day to the down trip, and jogged back in a day and a half, stopping in Sacramento only the extra half day. Then they rested with us one day, and were off the next. Thus they accomplished seven or eight trips in the month. Both Old and Cal had the reputation of being quick, accurate shots, although I have never seen them perform. As the three of them were absolutely inseparable they made a formidable combination that nothing but an organized gang would care to tackle. Consequently they swaggered as much as they pleased. At bottom they were good, clean, attractive boys, who were engaged in an adventure that was thrilling enough in sober reality, but which they loved to deck forth in further romance. They one and all assumed the stern, aloof, lofty pose of those whose affairs were too weighty to permit mingling with ordinary amusements. Their speech was laconic, their manners grave, their attitude self-contained. It was a good thing, I believe; for outside the fact that it kept them out of quarrels, it kept them also out of drinking and gambling.

I made many acquaintances of course, but only a few friends. The best of these were Dr. Rankin and Danny Randall. Strangely enough, these two were great pals. Danny had a little room back of the Bella Union furnished out with a round table, a dozen chairs, and a sofa. Here he loved to retire with his personal friends to sip drinks, smoke, and to discuss all sorts of matters. A little glassless window gave into the Bella Union, and as the floor of the little room was raised a foot or so, Danny sat where he could see everything that went on. These gatherings varied in number, but never exceeded the capacity of the dozen chairs. I do not know how Danny had caused it to be understood that these were invitation affairs, but understood it was, and no one ever presumed to intrude unbidden into the little room. Danny selected his company as the fancy took him.

As to why he should so often have chosen me I must again confess ignorance. Perhaps because I was a good listener. If so, the third member of a very frequent triumvirate, Dr. Rankin, was invited for the opposite quality. The doctor was a great talker, an analyst of conditions, and a philosophical spectator. The most frequent theme of our talks was the prevalence of disorder. On this subject the doctor had very decided views.

"There is disorder because we shirk our duty as a community," he stated, "and we shirk our duty as a community because we believe in our hearts that we aren't a community. What does Jones or Smith or Robinson or anybody else really care for Italian Bar as a place; or, indeed, for California as a place? Not a tinker's damn! He came out here in the first place to make his pile, and in the second place to have a good time. He isn't dependent on any one's good opinion, as he used to be at home. He refuses to be bothered with responsibilities and he doesn't need to be. Why a pan miner needn't even speak to his next neighbour unless he wants to; and a cradle miner need bother only with his partners!"

"Miners' meetings have done some pretty good legislation," I pointed out.

"Legislation; yes!" cried the doctor. "Haven't you discovered that the American has a perfect genius for organization? Eight coal heavers on a desert island would in a week have a full list of officers, a code of laws, and would be wrangling over ridiculous parliamentary points of order in their meetings. That's just the trouble. The ease with which Americans can sketch out a state on paper is an anodyne to conscience. We get together and pass a lot of resolutions, and go away with a satisfied feeling that we've really done something."

"But I believe a camp like this may prove permanent," objected Randall.

"Exactly. And by that very fact a social obligation comes into existence. Trouble is, every mother's son tries to escape it in his own case. What is every one's business is no one's business. Every fellow thinks he's got away from being bothered with such things. Sooner or later he'll find out he hasn't, and then he'll have to pay for his vacation."

"We never stood for much thieving at Hangman's Gulch," I interposed.

"What did you do?"

"We whipped and sent them about their business."

"To some other camp. You merely passed on your responsibility; you didn't settle it. Your whipping merely meant turning loose a revengeful and desperate man. Your various banishments merely meant your exchanging these fiends with the other camps. It's like scattering the coyotes that come around your fire."

"What would you do, Doctor?" asked Randall quietly; "we have no regular law."

"Why not? Why don't you adopt a little regular law? You need about three in this camp—against killing, against thievery, and against assault. Only enforce in every instance, as far as possible."

"You can't get this crowd to take time investigating the troubles of some man they never heard of."

"Exactly."

"And if they get too bad," said Danny, "we'll have to get the stranglers busy."

"Confound it, man!" roared Dr. Rankin, beating the table, "that's just what I've been trying to tell you. You ought not to care so much for punishing as for deterring. Don't you know that it's a commonplace that it isn't the terrifying quality of the penalty that acts as a deterrent to crime, but it's the certainty of the penalty! If a horse thief knows that there's merely a chance the community will get mad enough to hang him, he'll take that chance in hopes this may not be the time. If, on the other hand, he knows that every time he steals a horse he's going to be caught and fined even, he thinks a long time before he steals it."

"All that's true, Doctor," said Danny, "as theory; but now I'm coming to bat with a little practice. Here's the camp of Italian Bar in the year 1849. What would you do?"

"Elect the proper officers and enforce the law," answered the doctor promptly.

"Who would you elect?"

"There are plenty of good men here."

"Name me any one who would take the job. The good men are all washing gold; and they're in a hurry to finish before the rains. I don't care who you're about to name—if anybody; this is about what he'd say: 'I can't afford to leave my claim; I didn't come out here to risk my life in that sort of a row; I am leaving for the city when the rains begin, and I don't know that I'll come back to Italian Bar next season!'"

"Make it worth their while. Pay them," insisted the doctor stoutly.

"And how's the money to pay them to be collected? You'd have to create the officers of a government—and pay them."

"Well, why not?"

"At the election, who would take interest to elect a decent man, even if you could get hold of one? Not the other decent men. They're too busy, and too little interested. But the desperadoes and hard characters would be very much interested in getting some of their own stripe in office. The chances are they would be coming back to Italian Bar next season, especially if they had the legal machinery for keeping themselves out of trouble. You'd simply put yourself in their power."

Dr. Rankin shook his head.

"Just the same, you'll see that I am right," he prophesied. "This illusion of freedom to the social obligation is only an illusion. It will have to be paid for with added violence and turmoil."

"Why, I believe you're right as to that, Doctor," agreed Danny, "but I've discovered that often in this world a man has to pay a high price for what he gets. In fact, sometimes it's very expedient to pay a high price."

"I can foresee a lot of violence before the thing is worked out."

At this point the doctor, to his manifest disgust, was summoned to attend to some patient.

"That all sounds interesting," said I to Danny Randall once we were alone, "but I don't exactly fit it in."

"It means," said Danny, "that some day Morton's gang will go a little too far, and we'll have to get together and string some of them up."



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE OVERLAND IMMIGRANTS

The overland immigrants never ceased to interest us. The illness, destitution, and suffering that obtained among these people has never been adequately depicted. For one outfit with healthy looking members and adequate cattle there were dozens conducted by hollow-eyed, gaunt men, drawn by few weak animals. Women trudged wearily, carrying children. And the tales they brought were terrible. They told us of thousands they had left behind in the great desert of the Humboldt Sink, fighting starvation, disease, and the loss of cattle. Women who had lost their husbands from the deadly cholera were staggering on without food or water, leading their children. The trail was lined with dead mules and cattle. Some said that five thousand had perished on the plains from cholera alone. In the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere, were the death camps, the wagons drawn in the usual circle, the dead animals tainting the air, every living human being crippled from scurvy and other diseases. There was no fodder for the cattle, and one man told us that he estimated, soberly, that three fourths of the draught animals on the plains must die.

"And then where will their owners be?"

The Indians were hostile and thieving. Most of the ample provision that had been laid in had to be thrown away to lighten the loads for the enfeebled animals. Such immigrants as got through often arrived in an impoverished condition. Many of these on the route were reduced by starvation to living on the putrefied flesh of the dead animals along the road. This occasioned more sickness. The desert seemed interminable. At nightfall the struggling trains lay down exhausted with only the assurance of another scorching, burning day to follow. And when at last a few reached the Humboldt River, they found it almost impossible to ford—and the feed on the other side. In the distance showed the high forbidding ramparts of the Sierra Nevadas. A man named Delano told us that five men drowned themselves in the Humboldt River in one day out of sheer discouragement. Another man said he had saved the lives of his oxen by giving some Indians fifteen dollars to swim the river and float some grass across to him. The water of the Humboldt had a bad effect on horses, and great numbers died. The Indians stole others. The animals that remained were weak. The destruction of property was immense, for everything that could be spared was thrown away in order to lighten the loads. The road was lined with abandoned wagons, stoves, mining implements, clothes.

We were told these things over and over, heavily, in little snatches, by men too wearied and discouraged and beaten even to rejoice that they had come through alive. They were not interested in telling us, but they told, as though their minds were so full that they could not help it. I remember one evening when we were feeding at our camp the members of one of these trains, a charity every miner proffered nearly every day of the week. The party consisted of one wagon, a half dozen gaunt, dull-eyed oxen, two men, and a crushed-looking, tragic young woman. One of the men had in a crude way the gift of words.

He told of the crowds of people awaiting the new grass at Independence in Missouri, of the making up of the parties, the election of officers for the trip, the discussion of routes, the visiting, the campfires, the boundless hope.

"There were near twenty thousand people waiting for the grass," said our friend; a statement we thought exaggerated, but one which I have subsequently found to be not far from the truth.

By the middle of May the trail from the Missouri River to Fort Laramie was occupied by a continuous line of wagons.

"That was fine travelling," said the immigrant in the detached way of one who speaks of dead history. "There was grass and water; and the wagon seemed like a little house at night. Everybody was jolly. It didn't last long."

After Fort Laramie there were three hundred miles of plains, with little grass and less water.

"We thought that was a desert!" exclaimed the immigrant bitterly. "My God! Quite a lot turned back at Laramie. They were scared by the cholera that broke out, scared by the stories of the desert, scared by the Indians. They went back. I suppose they're well and hearty—and kicking themselves every gold report that goes back east."

The bright anticipations, the joy of the life, the romance of the journey all faded before the grim reality. The monotony of the plains, the barrenness of the desert, the toil of the mountains, the terrible heat, the dust, the rains, the sickness, the tragedy of deaths had flattened all buoyancy, and left in its stead only a sullen, dogged determination.

"There was lots of quarrelling, of course," said our narrator. "Everybody was on edge. There were fights, that we had to settle somehow, and bad feeling."

They had several minor skirmishes with Indians, lost from their party by disease, suffered considerable hardships and infinite toil.

"We thought we'd had a hard time," said our friend wonderingly. "Lord!"

At the very start of the journey they had begun to realize that they were overloaded, and had commenced to throw away superfluous goods. Several units of the party had even to abandon some of their wagons.

"We chucked everything we thought we could get along without. I know we spent all one day frying out bacon to get the grease before we threw it away. We used the grease for our axles."

They reached the head of the Humboldt. Until this point they had kept together, but now demoralization began. They had been told at Salt Lake City that they had but four hundred miles to go to Sacramento. Now they discovered that at the Humboldt they had still more than that distance to travel; and that before them lay the worst desert of all.

"Mind you," said our friend, "we had been travelling desperately. Our cattle had died one by one; and we had doubled up with our teams. We had starved for water until our beasts were ready to drop and our own tongues had swollen in our mouths, and were scared—scared, I tell you—scared!"

He moistened his lips slowly, and went on. "Sometimes we took two or three hours to go a mile, relaying back and forth. We were down to a fine point. It wasn't a question of keeping our property any more; it was a case of saving our lives. We'd abandoned a good half of our wagons already. When we got to the Humboldt and learned from a mountain man going the other way that the great desert was still before us, and when we had made a day or two's journey down the river toward the Sink, I tell you we lost our nerve—and our sense." He ruminated a few moments in silence. "My God! man!" he cried. "That trail! From about halfway down the river the carcasses of horses and oxen were so thick that I believe if they'd been laid in the road instead of alongside you could have walked the whole way without setting foot to ground!"

And then the river disappeared underground, and they had to face the crossing of the Sink itself.

"That was a real desert," the immigrant told us sombrely. "There were long white fields of alkali and drifts of ashes across them so soft that the cattle sank way to their bellies. They moaned and bellowed! Lord, how they moaned! And the dust rose up so thick you couldn't breathe, and the sun beat down so fierce you felt it like something heavy on your head. And how the place stunk with the dead beasts!"

The party's organization broke. The march became a rout. Everybody pushed on with what strength he had. No man, woman, or child could ride; the wagons were emptied of everything but the barest necessities. At every stop some animal fell in the traces, and was cut out of the yoke. When a wagon came to a stop, it was abandoned, the animals detached and driven forward.

Those who were still afoot were constantly besought by those who had been forced to a standstill.

"I saw one old man, his wife and his daughter, all walking along on foot," said the immigrant bitterly. "They were half knee deep in alkali, the sun was broiling hot, they had absolutely nothing. We couldn't help them. What earthly chance had they? I saw a wagon stalled, the animals lying dead in their yokes, all except one old ox. A woman and three children sat inside the wagon. She called to me that they hadn't had anything to eat for three days, and begged me to take the children. I couldn't. I could have stopped and died there with her, but I couldn't put another pound on my wagon and hope to get through. We were all walking alongside; even Sue, here."

The woman raised her tragic face.

"We left our baby there," she said; and stared back again into the coals of the fire.

"We made it," resumed the immigrant. "We got to the Truckee River somehow, and we rested there three days. I don't know what became of the rest of our train; dead perhaps."

We told him of the immigrant register or bulletin board at Morton's.

"I must look that over," said he. "I don't know how long it took us to cross the mountains. Those roads are terrible; and our cattle were weak. We were pretty near out of grub too. Most of the people have no food at all. Well, here we are! But there are thousands back of us. What are they going to do? And when the mountains fill with snow——"

After the trio, well fed for the first time in months, had turned in, we sat talking about our fire. We were considerably subdued and sobered; for this was the first coherent account we had heard at first hand. Two things impressed us—the tragedy, the futility. The former aspect hit us all; the latter struck strongly at Old and Cal. Those youngsters, wise in the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over the incompetence of it all.

"But thar ain't no manner of use in it!" cried Old. "They are just bullin' at it plumb regardless! They ain't handled their cattle right! They ain't picked their route right—why, the old Mormon trail down by the Carson Sink is better'n that death-trap across the Humboldt. And cut-offs! What license they all got chasin' every fool cut-off reported in? Most of 'em is all right fer pack-trains and all wrong fer wagons! Oh, Lord!"

"They don't know," said I, "poor devils, they don't know. They were raised on farms and in the cities."

Johnny had said nothing. His handsome face looked very sombre in the firelight.

"Jim," said he, "we're due for a trip to-night; but I want you to promise me one thing—just keep these people here, and feed them up until we get back. Tell them I've got a job for them. Will you do it?"

I tried to pump Johnny as to his intentions, but could get nothing out of him; and so promised blindly. About two o'clock I was roused from my sleep by a soft moving about. Thrusting my head from the tent I made out the dim figures of our horsemen, mounted, and moving quietly away down the trail.



CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PRISONERS

I had no great difficulty in persuading the immigrants to rest over.

"To tell you the truth," the narrator confided to me, "I don't know where we're going. We have no money. We've got to get work somehow. I don't know now why we came."

His name, he told me, was George Woodruff; he had been a lawyer in a small Pennsylvania town; his total possessions were now represented by the remains of his ox team, his wagon, and the blankets in which he slept. The other man was his brother Albert, and the woman his sister-in-law.

"We started with four wagons and a fine fit-out of supplies," he told me—"food enough to last two years. This is what we have left. The cattle aren't in bad shape now though; and they are extra fine stock. Perhaps I can sell them for a little."

Two days passed. We arose the morning of the third to find that the oxen had strayed away during the night. Deciding they could not have wandered far, I went to my gold washing as usual, leaving Woodruff and his brother to hunt them up. About ten o'clock they came to my claim very much troubled.

"We can't find them anywhere," they told me, "and it doesn't seem natural that they should stray far; they are too tired."

I knocked off work, and returned with them to the flat, where we proceeded to look for tracks. The earth was too hard and tramped to show us much, and after a half hour of fruitless examination we returned to camp with the intention of eating something before starting out on a serious search. While thus engaged the express messengers rode up.

"Hullo!" said Johnny cheerfully. "Glad to hear you made such a good thing out of your cattle!"

He caught our stare of surprise, swung from his horse and advanced on us with three swift strides.

"You haven't sold them?" he exclaimed.

"We've been looking for them all the morning."

"Stolen, boys!" he cried to his companions. "Here's our job! Come on!"

He leaped on his horse in the headlong, graceful fashion the boys had cultivated at the relay station, and, followed by Cal and Old, dashed away.

We made nothing definite of this, though we had our surmises to exchange. As the boys had not returned an hour later, I resumed my digging while the Woodruffs went over to visit with Yank, who was now out of bed. Evening came, with no sign of our friends. We turned in at last.

Some time after midnight we were awakened by the shuffling and lowing of driven cattle, and went out into the moonlight to see our six oxen, just released from herding, plunging their noses thirstily into the little stream from the spring. Five figures on horseback sat motionless in the background behind them. When the cattle had finished drinking, the horsemen, riding in two couples and one single, turned them into the flat, and then came over to our camp.

After they had approached within plain sight we saw that the single horseman was Cal Marsh; and that Johnny and Old each led an animal on which a man was tied, his arms behind him, his feet shackled beneath the horse's barrel.

"Here, you fellows," said Johnny in a low voice, "just catch hold here and help with these birds."

The three descended rather wearily from their horses, the lead lines of which Cal held while the rest unshackled the prisoners and helped them to dismount. They were both known to me, one as the big desperado, Malone; and the other as the barkeeper at Morton's place, our old friend of Chagres days. The latter's head was roughly bound with a bloody cloth. Under Johnny's direction we tied them firmly. He issued his orders in a low-voiced, curt fashion that precluded anything but the most instant and silent obedience.

"There," said he at last, "they'll do. Chuck them inside where they'll be out of sight. Now about those two horses——"

"I'll just run 'em up to the Dutchman's Flat and stake 'em out thar," interposed Old. "Thar ain't no one thar; and they won't be discovered."

"Well," conceded Johnny, "if your horse isn't too tired."

"She'll make it," replied Old confidently.

"Now for our horses," said Johnny. "Won't do to be getting in at this time of night. It doesn't look natural. Don't believe we can get them to the stable without being spotted. Maybe you'd better stake them up there too. Can you walk back?"

"I reckon," said Old.

He tied the four led horses together, mounted, took the lead rope from Cal, and rode off up the gulch.

Cal came to the fire and sat down. I was instantly struck by his ghastly appearance.

"Cal's bored through the shoulder," Johnny explained. "Now, Jim, you've got to go up and get Dr. Rankin. He lives at Barnes's hotel, you know. Barnes is all right; bring him down, too, if you happen to wake him up. Go around to Danny Randall's quietly and tell him we want to see him. He sleeps in that little back room. Throw some pebbles against the stovepipe; that'll wake him up. Look out he doesn't pot you. Don't let anybody see you if you can possibly help; and tell the others to slip out here quietly, too. Do you understand all that?"

"I see what I'm to do," I assented; "but let me in! What's it all about?"

"We met these men and three others driving Woodruff's oxen this morning," said Johnny rapidly. "Stopped and had quite a chat with them. They told what sounded like a straight story of having bought the oxen. I knew Woodruff wanted to sell. Didn't suppose they'd have the nerve to lift them right under our noses. Guess they hadn't an idea they'd meet us on the road. We were taking the lower trail just for a change. So as soon as we got the news from you, we went back, of course. They suspected trouble, and had turned off. Old and Cal are wonders at trailing. Came up with them just beyond Bitter Water, and monkeyed around quite a while before we got a favourable chance to tackle them. Then we took the cattle away and brought back these birds. That's all there was to it."

"You said five. Where are the other three?"

"Killed 'em," said Johnny briefly. "Now run along and do your job."

After some delay and difficulty I fulfilled my instructions, returning at last in company with Danny Randall, to find my friends sitting around the little fire, and Dr. Rankin engaged in bathing Cal's wound. Johnny was repeating his story, to which the others were listening attentively.

"I learned a little more of this sort of thing in Sacramento," he was concluding. "And I'd like to state this right here and now: practical jokes on these immigrants are poor taste as far as I am concerned from now on. That's my own private declaration of war."

"Let's take a look at your birds, Johnny," suggested Randall.

I brought out the prisoners and stacked them up against the trees. They gave us back look for look defiantly.

"You won't live a week after this," said the Morton man, whose name was Carhart, addressing Johnny.

"I'll just have a look at your head, my friend," said Dr. Rankin.

The man bent his head, and the doctor began to remove the bloody bandages.

"Question is," said Johnny, "what do we do with them?"

Danny was thinking hard.

"One of two things," said he at length: "We can string them up quietly, and leave them as a warning; or we can force matters to a showdown by calling a public meeting."

"Question is," said I, "whether we can get anybody with nerve enough to serve as officers of court, or, indeed, to testify as witnesses."

"You said a true word there," put in Carhart with an oath.

"I'll bear witness for one," offered Dr. Rankin, looking up from his work, "and on a good many things."

"Look out, damn you!" muttered Carhart.

"I've been called to a good many cases of gunshot wounds," continued the doctor steadily, "and I've kept quiet because I was given to understand that my life was worth nothing if I spoke."

"You'd better keep your mouth shut!" warned the bandit.

"Now," pursued the doctor, "I personally believe the time has come to assert ourselves. I'm in favour of serving notice on the whole lot, and cleaning up the mess once and for all. I believe there are more decent men than criminals in this camp, if you get them together."

"That's my idea," agreed Johnny heartily. "Get the camp together; I'll see every man in it and let Woodruff tell his tale, and then let Old or me tell ours."

"And I'll tell mine," said Dr. Rankin.

Danny Randall shook his head.

"They'll rise to it like men!" cried Johnny indignantly. "Nobody but a murderer and cattle thief listening to that story could remain unmoved."

"Well," said Danny, "if you won't just quietly hang these fellows right now, try the other. I should string 'em up and shut their mouths. You're too early; it won't do."



CHAPTER XXXV

THE TRIAL

The meeting took place in the Bella Union, and the place was crowded to the doors. All the roughs in town were on hand, fully armed, swearing, swaggering, and brandishing their weapons. They had much to say by way of threat, for they did not hesitate to show their sympathies. As I looked upon their unexpected numbers and listened to their wild talk, I must confess that my heart failed me. Though they had not the advantage in numbers, they knew each other; were prepared to work together; were, in general, desperately courageous and reckless, and imbued with the greatest confidence. The decent miners, on the other hand, were practically unknown to each other; and, while brave enough and hardy enough, possessed neither the recklessness nor desperation of the others. I think our main weakness sprang from the selfish detachment that had prevented us from knowing whom to trust.

After preliminary organization a wrangle at once began as to the form of the trial. We held very strongly that we should continue our usual custom of open meeting; but Morton insisted with equal vehemence that the prisoners should have jury trial. The discussion grew very hot and confused. Pistols and knives were flourished. The chair put the matter to a vote, but was unable to decide from the yells and howls that answered the question which side had the preponderance. A rising vote was demanded.

"Won't they attempt a rescue?" I asked of Danny Randall, under cover of the pandemonium. "They could easily fight their way free."

He shook his head.

"That would mean outlawing themselves. They would rather get clear under some show of law. Then they figure to run the camp."

The vote was understood to favour a jury trial.

"That settles it," said Danny; "the poor damn fools."

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"You'll see," said he.

In the selection of the jury we had the advantage. None of the roughs could get on the panel to hang the verdict, for the simple reason that they were all too well known. The miners cautiously refused to endorse any one whose general respectability was not known to them. I found myself one of those selected.

A slight barrier consisting of a pole thrown across one corner of the room set aside a jury box. We took our places therein. Men crowded to the pole, talking for our benefit, cursing steadily, and uttering the most frightful threats.

I am not going to describe that most turbulent afternoon. The details are unessential to the main point, which was our decision. Counsel was appointed by the court from among the numerous ex-lawyers. The man who took charge of the defence was from New York, and had served some ten years in the profession before the gold fever took him. I happen to know that he was a most sober-minded, steady individual, not at all in sympathy with the rougher elements; but, like most of his ilk, he speedily became so intensely interested in plying his profession that he forgot utterly the justice of the case. He defended the lawless element with all the tricks at his command. For that reason Woodruff was prevented from testifying at all, except as to his ownership of the cattle; so that the effect of his pathetic story was lost. Dr. Rankin had no chance to appear. This meeting should have marked the awakening of public spirit to law and order; and if all the elements of the case had been allowed to come before the decent part of the community in a common-sense fashion, I am quite sure it would have done so. But two lawyers got interested in tangling each other up with their technicalities, and the result was that the real significance of the occasion was lost to sight. The lawyer for the defence, pink and warm and happy, sat down quite pleased with his adroitness. A few of us, and the desperadoes, alone realized what it all meant.