CHAPTER V
IN THE SILVER MOON MINING CAMP
It was the close of a dark November day. Heavy mists hung over the gulch and settled upon the mountain stream that ran between high banks at its bottom, and upon the miners’ huts that dotted either side.
The men had returned from their work and many of them were seeking rest and refreshment in the shed dignified with the name of saloon, where they paid very high prices for very bad whisky, and won or lost money with very grimy cards.
One excuse for them was this—the camp was a new one, far out of civilization. It had been called into existence by the hue and cry of a new and grand discovery of ore in a mine which the discoverers christened the Silver Moon. It was formed mostly of men who had been unsuccessful in other mines. And there was not a woman in it.
Three men sat on the ground in the rudest of rude stone huts, built up irregularly of small fragments of rocks, and roofed with slender logs. There was neither door, window nor chimney, but there was an opening in front, protected by a buffalo hide—to keep the heat in, and there was a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. The floor was the solid earth, and the fire was built against the wall. There was scarcely any furniture to be seen, only a heap of coarse blankets in one corner, and an iron pot and a few tin cups and plates in another.
Judy’s well-ordered hut at Grizzly was a little palace compared to this squalid shelter.
The three men sitting on the earth floor, before the fire, which afforded the only light in the place, were unkempt, unwashed and altogether about the roughest-looking savages since the prehistoric ages. Yet they were three as different men as could be found anywhere.
The first was perhaps the very tallest man ever seen outside of a show, grandly proportioned, with a fine head, fine face, clear, blue eyes, and yellow hair that flowed to his shoulders, and a yellow beard that fell to his bosom. He was clothed in a buckskin coat trimmed with fur, now much the worse for wear, and buckskin leggings and buffalo-hide boots. In a word, this Hercules was our old friend, Samson Longman.
The second was a medium-sized and elderly man, with a thin, red face, red beard and a bald head. He was clothed in a coarse, gray shirt, duck trousers, a nondescript jacket, and many wrappings of sackcloth and sage grass around his feet and ankles, by way of boots. He was our old acquaintance, Andrew Quin.
The third was a slight yet muscular youth, with clear, bright complexion, dark gray eyes and dark brown hair, a mocking nose and a laughing mouth. He wore a coarse, red flannel shirt, duck trousers, tucked into hide boots, a knit-woolen blouse, and battered felt hat. Of course, he was young Michael Man.