CHAPTER X[ToC]
FIRST SHOTS OF THE SUMMER
Half-way up the scarred slope of mountain-side, and opposite the mouth of a deep ravine, hung the crude wooden buildings and costly machinery of a modern mine. Zigzagging up the heights, the road that led to it from the ramshackle town in the valley was dotted with groups of rough-coated men, all plodding steadily onward. Perched on "benches" and shelves and dumps of blasted rock and fresh-heaped earth, similar though smaller clusters of buildings dotted the lower slopes, marring the grand outlines and sweeping curves of the great upheavals, cutting ugly gashes in the green and swelling billows, yet eagerly sought in the race for wealth and the greed for gold, because of the treasures they wrested from the bowels of the everlasting hills. Afar down the winding valley a turbid stream went frothing away to the foot-hills, telling of labor, turmoil, and strife. Beside it twisted and turned the railway that burrowed through the range barely five miles back of the town, and reappeared on the westward face of the Silver Bow, clinging dizzily to heights that looked down on rolling miles of pine, cedar, stunted oak, and almost primeval loneliness. The mineral wealth, said the experts, lay on the eastward side, and by thousands the miners were there, swarming like ants all over the surface seeking their golden gain.
SILVER SHIELD[ToList]
And something was surely amiss at the mines when the chimneys of as many as six of the "plants" gave forth no smoke, when the fires were out and the men adrift. Something had happened that called the craftsmen from a dozen other burrows to the aid of those at the new and lately thronging works, on that shoulder at the mouth of the gorge—the mine of the Silver Shield. Murder most foul, said the story, had been done in the name of the law. Armed guards of the property had shot down, it was said, a half-score of workmen, clamoring only for their pay and their rights. A son of the principal owner, so it was known, had ordered his men to fire. A son of an old soldier and settler, living in peace barely forty miles away, was one of the victims, for he had taken sides with Long Nolan, who without rhyme or reason had been discharged, and violently flung from the premises. There had been a wild rush on the guard, a volley, a recoil, a rally in force, and an outcry for vengeance. Then the guard had to shoot in earnest and self-defence, for their lives were at stake. Some of the men had gone to Argenta to plead with the owners, but most had remained to stir all hands within ten miles to the support of their fellows. The miscreant who had ordered "fire" had escaped across to Miners' Joy, only to be dealt with by sympathizers on the Narrow Gauge; but the men who fired and who shot to kill were trapped like rats in a hole. Surrounded on every side, every avenue of escape now guarded, they and the luckless manager of the mine were cooped in their log fortification, with two lives and several serious wounds to answer for, and as the sun went westering this long summer's day they had two hours left in which to decide—come out and surrender or be burned out where they lay.
Half the village had gone to swell the ranks of the rioters; another half—slatternly women and unkempt children—swarmed in the single street and gazed upward at the heights. Every ledge about the threatened buildings was black with men, men furious with hate and mad with liquor, men needing only determined and resolute leaders to go in and finish their fearful work.