Digging for Gold: Adventures in California

by R. M. Ballantyne

“Surely you have been too hasty,” exclaimed Frank, advancing without any settled intention, but under an indefinable sense that wrong was being done.

At this several miners leaped forward, and drawing their revolvers, swore with a terrible oath that they would shoot any man who should attempt to cut the murderer down.

As one of the miners here explained hastily why it was that justice had been meted out with such promptitude, our hero drew back and left the spot, feeling, however, that Judge Lynch was a very dangerous character, seeing that he might be just as prompt with the innocent as with the guilty, although he would find it rather difficult to recall life if he should find out afterwards that he had been mistaken in his views.

This event was followed two days after by another incident, which caused considerable excitement in Bigbear Gully. With the increase of miners there had been a considerable increase of crime, as might naturally have been expected in a country where, while there were undoubtedly many honest men, there were also thousands of scoundrels of all nations who had been attracted thither by the dazzling accounts given of the new El Dorado in the West. Rows, more or less severe, in reference to claims and boundaries, had become frequent. Cold-blooded murders were on the increase; and thefts became so common that a general sense of insecurity began to be felt.

This state of things at last wrought its own cure. One day a youth went into the hut of a neighbouring digger, a Yankee, and stole a coffee-tin. He was taken in the act, and as this was the second time that he had been caught purloining his neighbours’ goods, those in the vicinity rose up en masse in a furore of indignation. A hurried meeting of all the miners was called, and it was unanimously resolved—at least so unanimously that those who dissented thought it advisable to be silent—that Lynch-law should be rigorously put in force.

Accordingly, several of the most energetic and violent of the miners constituted themselves judges on the spot, and, on hearing a brief statement of the case, decreed that the culprit was to be subjected to whatever punishment should be determined on by the man whom he had injured. The Yankee at once decided that the rims of his ears should be cut off, and that he should be seared deeply in the cheek with a red-hot iron; which sentence was carried into execution on the spot!

It happened that while this was going on, another of the thieving fraternity, who did not know of the storm that was gathering and about to burst over the heads of such as he, took advantage of the excitement to enter a tent, and abstract therefrom a bag of gold worth several hundred pounds. It chanced that the owner of it happened to be ailing slightly that day, and, instead of following his companions, had lain still in his tent, rolled up in blankets. He was awakened by the thief, sprang up and collared him, and, observing what he was about, dragged him before the tribunal which was still sitting in deliberation on the affairs of the community. The man was instantly condemned to be shot, and this was done at once—several of the exasperated judges assisting the firing party to carry the sentence into execution.

“Now men,” cried a tall raw-boned Yankee from the Western States, mounting on a stump after the body had been removed, and speaking with tremendous vehemence, “I guess things have come to such a deadlock here that it’s time for honest men to carry things with a high hand, so I opine we had better set about it and make a few laws,—an’ if you have no objections, I’ll lay down a lot o’ them slick off—bran’ new laws, warranted to work well, and stand wear and tear, and ready greased for action.”

“Hear! hear!” cried several voices in the crowd that surrounded this western Solon, while others laughed at his impudence. All, however, were eager to see the prevailing state of things put right, and glad to back any one who appeared able and willing to act with vigour.

“Wall then, here goes,” cried the Yankee. “Let it be decreed that whatever critter shall be nabbed in the act of makin’ tracks with what isn’t his’n, shall have his ears cut off, if it’s a mild case, and be hanged or shot if it’s a bad un.”