The Captain nodded. “Good enough. Your country has first call. Go to it, boy.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE “STRANGLERS”
A letter from Scot delayed Hugh for a time from carrying out his intention of joining the army. The older brother wrote that he had been offered a commission and was anxious to get to the front, but that certain matters were just now keeping him in town. He did not mention that he was waiting till Mollie closed out her little business and moved to Carson, where she would be free of her husband’s interference.
The news that his brother was going into the army gave the boy a thrill. He had given his ardent hero worship to Scot. He felt, as many others did, too, that there were thwarted qualities of leadership in Scot that might yet make of him a Broderick. Between him and a big future there was no obstacle but the wilful wildness of the man. He had everything that made for success except stability of purpose.
What a soldier he would be. What an officer under whom to serve! Scot would make an ideal cavalry chief. Young McClintock wrote back at once that he would join his brother whenever he was ready to leave. He wanted, if possible, to serve in his company.
The departure of Sam Dutch from Aurora did not put an end to lawlessness there, though it undoubtedly heartened the good people and prepared the way for the drastic law-and-order programme which followed.
The Last Chance mines were producing amazingly. There seemed no end to the riches in sight. Money was easy, and the rough element flocked to the town from California and the other Nevada camps. The Sacramento and San Francisco gangs ran wild and killed and maimed each other at will, but so long as they let good citizens alone for the most part, no efficient check was put upon them. The town went its busy, turbulent, happy-go-lucky way. It sunk shafts, built business blocks, established a company of home guards known as the Esmeralda Rangers, and in general made preparations for a continued prosperity that was never to end. Two daily newspapers supplied the eight thousand inhabitants with the news of the world as it came in over the wire.
The ebb and flow of the tide of battle from the great centres where the armies of Lee, Meade, Grant, Buell, and Bragg struggled reached this far-off frontier and drew a line of cleavage between the fiery Southerners and the steadfast Northerners who made up the population. Nevada had been made a territory and the fight was on for statehood. President Lincoln backed the party which demanded admission. The reasons were both political and financial. Later, Abraham Lincoln said that Nevada, through the treasures of gold and silver which it poured to the national capital, had been worth a million men to the Union cause.
His wood contract finished, Hugh took temporarily a place with the express company as shotgun messenger. The job was a very dangerous one. Hold-ups were frequent, and the messenger did not get or expect an even break. In the narrow twisting cañons below the town it was easy to lie in ambush and surprise the stage as it carried bullion from the mines.