Knowlton, the deputy sheriff, who was assigned to Kay, sat on the steps before the office door. He was rolling a cigarette, seemingly unconscious of the noisy crowd. But pay day was always likely to cause trouble, and he was prepared for it.
“No one quite dared to lead an attack upon Knowlton, who stood his ground beside the body.” [Page 241]
The group of excited men augmented fast, as little knots of miners were paid off, and found awaiting them a willing audience of their grievances. A word will fire a crowd of this kind as quickly as a fuse will set off a charge of giant powder.
Knowlton watched them closely, out of the corner of his eye. He saw one of the leaders in the discussion stoop down and pick up a large rock.
“Hey, Rigas! Drop that, quick!” he shouted.
For answer the rock crashed through the glass of the office window.
Knowlton waded into the midst of the crowd, and seized Rigas by the collar, almost hurling him off his feet. His rough tactics generally overawed his prisoners, but Rigas had been drinking, and fought. The crowd began to close in.
Knowlton dropped his hand to the point where the suspenders joined his belt and whipped out his “automatic.” Raising it in the air, he swung it down with all his strength upon Rigas’s head. There was a stunning report, and the miner lay upon the ground, with a hole two inches wide through his forehead. The crowd, muttering angry curses, drew back. No one quite dared to lead an attack upon Knowlton, who stood his ground beside the body, his still smoking gun in his hand. The camp doctor came up on the run, having heard the sound of the report. Kneeling beside the body, he gave short and incisive directions.
“Valrigo, Peres, Gonzales, and Escallerra; you four carry him over to the hospital!”