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Finally, on October 3, the representatives of both the operators and the miners met before me, in pursuance of my request. The representatives of the miners included as their head and spokesman John Mitchell, who kept his temper admirably and showed to much advantage.

The miners took very little notice of her, and she certainly made no effort to attract it, leaning listlessly against the bar with one elbow on the counter, a silent and motionless spectator of all this excited eager humanity. There was no thought in their mind, no word on their lips just then but gold. Gold! gold!

"'E's waiting for Dick to come back, that's what he is," volunteered one of the miners; "and somehow or other I don't feel jest dying to be in Dick's shoes when he do come." There was no dissent openly offered to this guarded opinion. Most of the men hung about in the tunnel, and seemed unwilling to quit the scene of the coming contest.

'I think you would like to listen to him. 'Yes, my fault is not listening enough, said Mr. Tuckham. He was capable of receiving correction. Her father told her he was indebted to Mr. Tuckham past payment in coin, for services rendered by him on a trying occasion among the miners in Wales during the first spring month.

Sister Martha is acting her role of heroine at a point a mile and a half further up the grade. She has posted herself where she can observe the station and the summit of the grade. At the side of the track she collects a dozen boulders, the heaviest she can move. These she determines to put on the track to derail the car which the miners are to send down the grade to wreck the train.

In a shanty of the composite order of architecture it having a foundation of stone, succeeded by logs, a gable of coffin misfits and cracker-boxes, and a roof of bark and canvas Buffle and three other miners were playing "old sledge." The table was an empty pork-barrel; the seats were respectively, a block of wood, a stone, and a raisin-box, with a well-stuffed knapsack for the tallest man.

The country had lost its appearance of loneliness, for we passed several parties of miners and heard the heavy booming of giant powder at intervals, and from various directions all through the day. We were joined by a jolly party of miners who were eager for news and camped with us over night. There were three men in this outfit.

Those in pressing need of money receive certificates of deposit as soon as their gold is cast into bars, and on these certificates they can obtain cash at the government banks. The opulent miners remain content till their gold reaches the capital, and is coined. Four or six months may thus elapse after gold has left Barnaool before its owner obtains returns.

Then it was pleasant to sit with other miners under the trees or in the shade by the stream swapping yarns, doing our mending or washing, and generally getting acquainted. As each man's product was his own, no one cared how much or how little the others worked. Simply when he quit, his share ceased. This does not mean that we shirked our work, however; we merely grew to be a little sensible.

Buffle here." "Here he is, ma'am, and yours truly," said Buffle, removing his hat. He could afford to. She was not beautiful, but she seemed to be in trouble, and a troubled woman can command, to the death, even worse men than free-and-easy miners. She had a refined, pure face, out of which two great brown eyes looked so tenderly and anxiously, that these men forgot themselves at once.