THE MINER’S PARTNER.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.
There was a good deal of excitement in the mining camps at and near Flume City, which, as every mining reader knows, was prominent among the gold-diggings, and gold-washings also, of Colorado twenty years ago. A meeting of miners was being held at the largest building in the city—a wooden shed, which called itself a restaurant, at which there were assembled some forty or fifty men, rough-looking, roughly clad, and armed with revolver and knife, although no intention existed of using such weapons at this gathering. The assembly, indeed, had been called together with an object calculated to promote union and comradeship—to assist in maintaining individual rights and to support the law generally.
There was a president, of course, and his discourse, if not polished, was much to the point. ‘I reckon,’ he said, after the meeting had lasted perhaps an hour, and several speeches had been made, with a good deal of shouting in the way of approval—‘I reckon that the citizens who have spoken are about right. We have got some traitors among us, and that’s where the worst comes in. It wasn’t by chance that any outside loafer knew just when to steal the washings at the Long Placer last night, or that Scotch Ned was sent away when the stamp-mill was broken. We know who broke the mill—it was Bill Dobell. But who told him to come in then? And who could have known that the Kentucky boys at the Long Placer had got the best washings they had seen this year? Who could have known that but one among us?’
The president said much more to this effect; but the remainder of his speech, with the various orations which followed, need not be given, as we have shown what was the nature of the excitement which had called the miners into solemn conclave.
The language used was odd and quaint enough; to many it would have sounded absurd in its phraseology; but no fault could have been found with the matter. That was direct and shrewd, and evinced a strong determination to put down the mischief which was making itself felt.
At the conclusion of a pithy harangue, in which the speaker urged vigorous and brief proceedings against any one detected in such unpardonable conduct, or reasonably suspected of complicity in the crime—for robbing the troughs in a mining country is looked upon as worse than murder, and is considered to be quite as bad as horse-stealing—a voice exclaimed: ‘You air right, colonel!’
Every one started at the sound, and looked in the direction of the speaker, who, having recently joined the meeting, with several others, stood near the door. A dozen men whispered to their next neighbours: ‘Why, it is Rube Steele!’ And significant glances were exchanged.
‘I thought the other day there was Injuns lying around to thieve,’ continued the man; ‘so, when’——
‘You told us so, Rube,’ interrupted the president; ‘and the Kentucky boys from the Long Placer came into committee on the subject; and their troughs were robbed while they were gone. You know that, I estimate?’