"I fancied you understood that already," said Eshelby. "If those whose business it is think fit to modify the regulations you complain of I will let you know. Unless that happens they will be adhered to as usual, rigorously."
His coldly even voice was in itself an aggravation, and Slavin, who saw one of the deputation move forward with a little glow in his eyes, rose sharply to his feet. He, however, sat down again next moment with a smile, for Sewell quietly laid his hand upon the man's arm, and the rest stood still in obedience to his gesture. Slavin was not astonished, for he, too, was a man who understood how to wield authority.
"Then," said Sewell, "we need not waste any more of your time. We have heard nothing that we did not expect, boys, and now we at least know where we stand."
He turned once more to Eshelby, raising his wide hat, and then moved back into the shadow of the pines, taking care, as Slavin noticed, that the others, who did not seem greatly desirous of doing so, went on in front of him. The Recorder glanced at Slavin complacently when they disappeared.
"A little firmness is usually effective in a case of this kind," he said. "I will, of course, send on the petition, but as I scarcely suppose it will be referred to again we can consider the affair as closed."
Slavin smiled. "I am not quite so sure as you seem to be. The fellow's last remark was a significant one, and he's not the kind of man to stand still anywhere very long. Anyway, he and you between you have forced my hand, and, while I have got to take your lead, the game is going to be a risky one."
Eshelby sat down with a little gesture which implied that he had already given the trifling affair rather more attention than it merited; and Slavin went out to take such proceedings as appeared advisable, though it was not until that night that the result of them became evident.
Sewell was then sitting with eight or nine men in the general room of Hobson's Oregon Hotel. It had walls of undressed logs, but the roof was still of canvas, for Hobson had been too busy watching over his interests in several profitable claims and dispensing deleterious liquor to split sufficient cedar. There was another room in the building in which he slept with any newcomer who was rash enough to put his hospitality to the test. Rather more than a hundred miners were at work in that valley, but only a few whose views and influence with the rest were known had been invited to attend the conference.
The room was foul with tobacco smoke and the reek of kerosene, for the big lamp smoked when the roof canvas flapped now and then. Sewell sat in a deer-hide chair with a pipe in his hand, and a man with a grim, bronzed face and a splendid corded arm showing through the torn sleeve of his shirt was speaking. He spoke quietly and like a man of education.
"We have," he said, "as our host has pointed out, done the straight thing and given constituted authority a show. The constituted authority, as usual, prefers to do nothing. We naturally consider our grievances warranted, but I need not go into them again. Some of us risked our lives to get here; the rest will probably do so by holding on through the winter, and, considering how we work, it is not exactly astonishing that we wish to take back a little gold with us—which we are scarcely likely to do under the present regulations. I, however, fancy the position is plain enough to everybody."