“John’s the alcalde,” McNally explained to us. “He’s the most level-headed man in these diggings.”
Most of the miners sat down on the ground in front, though some remained afoot. Semple rapped sharply on the barrel with the muzzle of his revolver.
“This is a miners’ meeting,” he stated briefly. “And we have several things to talk about. Most important thing, ’cordin’ to my notion, is this row about that big nugget. Seems these yere three men, whose names I disremember, is partners and is panning down there in the lower diggings, and while one of them is grubbing around 180 with a shovel getting ready to fill the company pan, he sees this yere nugget in the shovel, and annexes it. Now he claims it’s his nugget, and the rest of ’em claim it belongs to all of them as partners. How about it?”
Two men sprang to their feet and began to talk.
“You set down!” Semple ordered them. “You ain’t got nothing to do with decidin’ this. We’ll let you know what to do. If the facts ain’t right, as I stated ’em, say so; but we don’t want no theories out of you. Set down! I say.”
They subsided, and a silence fell which no one seemed inclined to break.
“Well,” said Semple impatiently, “come on! Speak up! Whar’s all this assorted lot of theories I been hearing in the say-loons ever since that nugget was turned up?”
A man with the most extraordinarily ragged garments got to his feet and began to speak in a pleasant and cultivated voice.
“I have no solution to offer this company,” said he, “but I am, or was, a New York lawyer; and if my knowledge of partnerships will help any, this is the New York law.” He sketched briefly the New York rulings on partnerships, and sat down.
“Much obliged, I’m sure,” said Semple cordially. “We’re glad to know how they’ve figgered it out down thar. Only trouble, as far as I see, is that they ain’t usually findin’ many nuggets down that neck of the woods; so they ain’t precisely fitted the case. Anybody know anything nearer to home?”