CHAPTER XXVIII
A COUNCIL OF WAR
Within a few days fifteen hundred men in Dawson had signified their readiness to act for a new Government. Another thousand could readily be counted upon from the creeks. Twenty-five hundred well-armed and determined men, entrenched at the top of the Dome, could withstand an army. To attack them, armed as they were with long-range sporting rifles, would be, on the part of the police, madness.
It was noon on a Saturday when Long Shorty left his last note to Five Ace Dan on the Yukon gravel bar. Having satisfied himself that the missive had fallen into the proper hands, he set out for the Dome to report. He found Berwick, Hugh Spencer, Bruce, Corte, and several others holding a council of war. Berwick was giving instructions.
"Behind the Dome, you will notice, is a valley where the timber is comparatively heavy. Our men can camp there with two weeks' provisions. Every man—or two men—will be their own commissariat. Their instructions will be to hold themselves in readiness while recruits are being gathered from the creeks."
"Recruits! We don't want no recruits from the creeks," roared Long Shorty. "Fifteen hundred men will fix the thing."
Hugh agreed with this. "Fifteen hundred men should be able to scare less than two hundred into surrender, especially when we can show them that we can shoot and be out of range of their rifles." Berwick put the matter to the vote, and it was agreed that the fifteen hundred to be recruited from Dawson would be sufficient.
Berwick sighed. "Very good; fifteen hundred let it be; but we must try to avoid bloodshed. This affair will be serious enough without anybody being killed. Pass the word for a muster right away; camps to be made in the woods as if a base for prospecting. At the camps rifles may be cached to be quickly available. It is possible the police may not notice the migration; but we must chance that. Until it is time to act the men will go into town every day as usual."