"Good; but Eldorado is better. Bill's go ground, some of it going five hundred dollars to the pan for picked dirt. But this high grade pay! The Government is going to send their yellow-legs round to relieve the boys of ten per cent., and fellows with poor ground will have to pay as well as the fellows on Eldorado. That ain't fair!"
"It's fair to charge for the administration of the country and keeping law and order," said George.
"To hell with law and order! You're a chechacho, or you wouldn't talk like that. Miners' meetings make pretty good law-courts; and now they have law and order, fellows begin to lock their doors. The country was a whole lot better before ever it saw an official."
"Yes; but the gang going in now will make things different," said Hugh.
"You're an old-timer?... Thought so when I first swallowed your beans. Chechachoes don't know how to boil beans like that. You'll find a big change round Rabbit Creek when you blow in there. It's gamblers and saloon men most have the good claims. Of course Carmack had to put his wife's relations in next to him on discovery; and when the crowd got up from Forty Mile they staked on Boulder Gulch and Adams Gulch. Neither any good—but say! they've got Dawson a hot town." He laughed. "Games running night and day; all the fun you want, but no gun-play; the yellow-legs will put you on the wood-pile right away quick, if ever you make a break; and it ain't no fun to be sawing wood at forty below, with a yellow-legs and a Winchester standing over you—for the glory of the Queen of England!"
Frank Miller's mind was lapsing.