Dorothy's Double Volume Iii Part 8

Truscott then made a calculation as to the amount required for the wine and spirits, and drew a cheque on the bank.

'You are sure you think it safe, Murdoch?' he asked in low tones.

'Safe enough,' the other replied. 'They know well enough if they were to take it they would be hunted down; anyhow there is no other way of doing it unless one of us goes down, and neither of us can be spared. We did not reckon on the stuff going so fast, and it would never do to run out.

They would go to the other places at once if they could not have liquor here. When do you expect to be back?' he asked, going across to the bar.

'In about four days, if they don't keep me.'

'They won't keep you,' the man said, 'longer than to go to the bank and get the money. To-day is Tuesday; you will get down to the road by to-night and you ought to be there by Thursday afternoon. If you get there in time to load up then and get out of the place you ought to be back by Sat.u.r.day night.'

'I reckon I shall,' Jacob said; 'that is if all goes right and I don't smash a wheel or an axle.'

'I will give you twenty dollars more than I bargained for if you are back by sundown on Sat.u.r.day. We shall want the stuff bad by that time.'

Jacob nodded. 'I will do my best,' he said. 'The horses can do it if we don't get blocked with anything. Is there any shopping I can do for you, miss?'

The girl shook her head.

'No, thank you; I have got everything I want.'

'You had better call at the post office when you get to the town,' Ned said. 'If you should think of anything more, miss, there would be time enough if you sent it off in the mail bag to-morrow morning. If you address it, "J. Langley," he will get it.'

The girl glanced at him with some little interest. He had spoken in a rough tone, but she detected a different intonation of the voice to that in which she was generally addressed.

'You are English, are you not?' she asked.

'Yes, miss, I came across from the old country some time ago.'

'I am English too,' she said. 'I suppose the horses and cart belong to you?'

'They are a sort of joint property between us,' he said; 'I work at the diggings and he drives, and I take it he makes more money than I do.'

'What part do you come from?' she asked.

'Mostly London,' he said; 'but I have been working about in a good many places, and I don't look upon one as home more than the other.'

'You are going to work here for a bit?' she asked.

'Yes, it seems from all I hear as good a place as any, and if I can get regular work for the waggon I shall stop here for a while. I am just buying a share in a claim, and I shall anyhow stop to see how it works out.'

'I have not seen you here before,' she said.

'I took my supper here last night,' he said; 'but the place was full. I did not come in in the evening, for I am not given to drink and I have not taken to gambling.'

'Don't,' she said, leaning forward, and speaking earnestly. 'You had as well throw your money away. I hate seeing men come in here and lose all they have worked so hard for for weeks; and then it leads to quarrels.

Don't begin it. It is no use telling any one who once has begun that they had better give it up. They don't seem as if they could do it then, but if you have never played don't do so.'

'I don't mean to. I have seen enough of it in other camps. Thank you, miss, all the same for your advice.'

The girl nodded and moved away, and Jacob, having received his list and instructions, presently joined Ned Hampton and they walked away together.

The next morning the latter set to work, and was so well satisfied at the end of two days with the result that he bought a share in the claim.

He took his meals at the saloon and went in for an hour every evening.

The place was at that time so crowded that he had but few opportunities of exchanging a word with the girl. She generally, however, gave him a nod as he came up to the bar for his gla.s.s of liquor. When he had taken it he usually strolled round the tables looking at the play. In the saloon itself it was harmless enough, the miners playing among themselves for small stakes, but in a room at the back of the saloon it was different. Here there was no noisy talk or loud discussion. The men sat or stood round a table at which Monte was being played, the dealer being a professional gambler, whose attire in ordinary clothes, with a diamond stud in his broad shirt front, contrasted strongly with the rough garb of the miners.

No sounds broke the silence here save an occasional muttered oath, an exclamation of triumph, or a call for liquor. It was seldom that an evening pa.s.sed without a serious quarrel here or at the drinking bar.

Twice during the first week of Ned's stay in the camp pistols were drawn. In one case a man was killed, in the other two were seriously wounded.

'I should like to see a law pa.s.sed by the miners themselves,' Ned Hampton said, as he was talking over the matter with his partners at their work next day, 'forbidding the carrying of pistols under the penalty of being turned out of camp; and it should be added that whoever after the pa.s.sing of the law drew and fired should be hung.'

'It would be easy enough, pard, to get the law pa.s.sed by a majority, but the thing would be to get it carried out. There are four or five men in this camp as would clear out the hull crowd. The best part of us hates these rows, and would glad enough be rid of the gang and work peaceably, but what are you to do when you can't have your own way without running a risk, and a mighty big one, of getting shot?'

'Ay, that is it,' another said. 'It would need a sheriff and a big posse to carry it out.'

'Of course, no one man would attempt such a thing,' Ned Hampton said, 'but I believe in some of the camps they have banded together and given the gamblers and the hard characters notice to quit, and have hung up those who refused to go. It is monstrous that two or three hundred men who only want to work peaceably should be terrorised by half-a-dozen ruffians.'

'It ain't right, mate, I allow as it ain't right, but it is hard to see what is to be done. There is Wyoming Bill, for example, who came into the camp last night, cursing and swearing and threatening that he would put a bullet in any man who refused to drink with him. I expect it were after you turned in, mate, but he cleared the saloon of the best part as was there in five minutes. He did not go into the inner room, he knew better'n that; Joe, the gambler, would have put a bullet into him before he could wink; so would Ben Hatcher, and two or three of the others would have tried it. Then he swaggered up to the bar and began to talk loud to the girl there. Some one told them in the inner room and Ben Hatcher and Bluff Harry stept out, pistol in hand, and says Ben, "You had best drop that, Wyoming, and as quick as lightning. It has been settled in this camp as any one as says a bad word in front of that bar will be carried out feet foremost, so don't you try it on, or you will be stuffed with bullets afore you can say knife. I know you and you know me, and there is half a dozen of us, so if you want to carry on you had best carry on outside. I tell you once for all." Wyoming Bill weakened at once, and the thing pa.s.sed off--but there will be a big muss some night.'

'I should like to turn the whole lot out,' Ned Hampton said, angrily; 'it could not be done in broad daylight without a regular battle, but we might tackle them one by one, taking them separately. Ten men might make this camp habitable.'

'Are you a good shot with the pistol, mate?'

'Yes, I am a good shot, but I don't pretend to be as quick with it as these professional bullies. Yet I have had to deal with awkward customers in my time, and would undertake to deal with these fellows if, as I said, I could get ten men to work with me.'

'Well, there are three of us here besides yourself, and I guess we would all take a hand in the game. What do you say, mates?'

The other two a.s.sented.

'We ought to be able to get seven others,' Jack Armitstead, who was the most prominent man of the party, said; 'they must be fellows one could trust; there is Long Ralph and Sam Nicholson and Providence d.i.c.k, they are all quiet chaps and could be trusted to hold their tongues. There has been a good deal of grumbling lately; there have been ten men killed here since the camp began, and it is generally allowed as that is too big an average. It is allus so with these new rushes. Chaps as begins to feel as they have made other places too hot for them, in general joins in a new rush. We must be careful who we speak to, for if the fellows got scent of it some of us would be wiped out afore many hours had pa.s.sed, for if it came to shooting, none of us would have a look in with men like Ben Hatcher or Wyoming Bill.'

'There is no occasion to be in a hurry,' Ned Hampton said; 'we can afford to wait till they get a little worse, but it would be as well to begin about it and get the number ready to act together.'

'You would be ready to act as captain if you were elected?' Jack Armitstead asked.

'Quite ready. I may tell you, though I don't wish it to go farther, that I have been an officer in the British army, and several times been engaged in police duty in a troubled country, where I have had to deal with as hard characters in their way as these men. I have no wish to be captain at all; I am almost a new chum, and many of you have been a year on the gold-fields. I shall be quite willing to serve under any one that may be elected; I have no wish whatever for the command.'

'All right, partner, we will talk it over and fix about who had best be asked. I guess in two or three days we can make up the number. The boys were pretty well riled last night at Wyoming's goings on, and if it hadn't have been that they did not want to make a muss, with that girl in the saloon, I fancy some of them would not have gone without shooting.'

The next evening the saloon was emptier than usual; there were but two or three men at the bar when Ned Hampton, who had finished his supper early, went over to it. The girl herself, contrary to her custom, came across to take his order.

'Good evening, miss,' he said; 'I hear you nearly had trouble here again last night.'

'Very nearly. I cannot think why men here will always pull out pistols; why don't they stand up and fight as they do at home? It is horrible.

There have been four men killed in the saloon while we have been here. I thought they would be rough, but I had no idea that it would be like this.'

'It is not a good place for a woman,' Ned Hampton said, bluntly, 'especially for a young and pretty one. Your father ought to know better than to bring you here.'

She shrugged her shoulders.