The starting of the stamps—the attack and repulse of the long-dreaded Indian band—the fact of Sailor Bill recovering his lost senses—all happening at once, all coming together!
It was too much for even the most apathetic of the miners to contemplate calmly. And when, after the final departure of the American soldiery—whose commander returned, after pursuing the Sioux for some distance amongst the Black Hills, to report that no further attack need be feared from the band, which was now thoroughly dispersed and incapable of assailing the camp a second time, that year at least—Minturne Creek resumed its normal quietude, and seemed duller than ever after such stirring events as had recently been witnessed, the excited gold-diggers gathered together in twos and threes, thinking over and talking about what had happened.
Beyond the stirring events that had happened they had also to mourn the loss of two of their number, as gallant comrades as men ever had—for, ere long, Black Harry had followed the smart foretopman to the silent land, succumbing to the dangerous wound he had received towards the end of the struggle from an Indian tomahawk wielded by a powerful arm, which had almost cleft the poor fellow’s skull in twain; and, after so many months of close companionship, the death of the two sailors was keenly felt.
The best way to banish painful thoughts, however, as Mr Rawlings knew from sad experience, was to engage in active employment; so he did not allow the men to remain idle, although he gave them ample time for a rest after the fight was over.
Summoning to his aid Noah Webster, who, like some of the others who had received trivial wounds, made light of the bullet hole through his arm, he mustered the hands late in the afternoon of the eventful day, and delivered a short practical address to them before resuming operations—a speech which, being to the point, had the desired effect of making the men go back to their work with a will.
“Now, lads,” said he, “we must be up and going. Sitting there talking will not bring back the poor fellows that have gone. I mourn our comrades just as much as you do, for they worked steadfastly, like the honest, true-hearted men they were, through the hard time of toil and trouble we had till recently, and at the last fought and died bravely in the defence of the camp. But, crying over them won’t help them now; all we can do is to bury them where they so nobly fell, and then turn our hands to carry on our work to the end that is now so near in view, just as they would have insisted on doing if they had been alive still and with us!”
There was no more lethargy after Mr Rawlings’ exhortation: as Solomon says,—“A word in season, how good it is!”
The men sprang up with alacrity to set about what he had suggested rather than ordered; and, as soon as graves had been dug in the shelter trench of the rampart that Tom Cannon and Black Harry had held so courageously against the Indians, and their bodies interred with all proper solemnity, Mr Rawlings himself reading the burial service over their remains, the miners grasped their picks and shovels with one hand as they wiped away a tear with the other, and went back to the mine, some of them possibly with the reflection that, all things considered, their slain mates were perhaps after all now better off than themselves!