“Yep. I heard Mr. Ackerman and Jones talking about it last night. It seems that those two men who were here yesterday own a placer claim right where we’ve got to cross. By mining law every placer claim has its right to drainage—unobstructed drainage—to the nearest watercourse; that’s the Tourmaline, in this case. These men say that we can’t put our railroad across their drainage gulch.”
“Shucks!” said Larry; “a railroad trestle won’t interfere with the drainage!”
“Of course it won’t. But that doesn’t make any difference; these men say it will, and they’ve gone into court about it; sued for an injunction, or something, to stop us.”
Larry looked up suddenly.
“Dick, do you know I don’t believe there’s any real placer claim there? You remember, when we were up here clearing the timber from our right-of-way three weeks ago after the crossing fight, there wasn’t a sign of anything doing in that gulch. I believe it’s another O. C. trick to delay us. If they could tie us up for just one single day, they’d stand a chance of beating us yet.”
“That is exactly what Mr. Ackerman said,” Dick threw in. “But we can’t prove that there isn’t any gold in that dry creek bed. Anybody can take up a mining claim anywhere in these mountains and go to work on it. The chief told Jones that our lawyers had looked it up, and there really is a claim on record, filed in the names of these two men, Shaw and Bolton. Of course we wouldn’t hurt anything running our track across it, just as you say. We’re planning to bridge it from bank to bank with a trestle, and the timbers are already cut and fitted and on the ground. Besides, Mr. Ackerman says we’ve offered to pay them any reasonable damages. But they won’t even talk about it.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” Larry asked.
“From what was talked last night I sort of suspect we’ll go right on building our railroad—and fight it out in the courts afterward. Our right-of-way was surveyed across that gulch mouth years ago, and if it comes down to the straight right and wrong of it, those miners are the real trespassers.”
Larry glanced at his wrist watch. It was eight o’clock; a tardy hour for them to be turning out. But they had been up late the night before, helping to hurry material to the front, and the chief had given orders to let them sleep.