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None of us felt like turning in. We all sat outside on the ground around a little fire. Toward midnight we heard voices; and a moment later Yank and Bagsby strode in out of the darkness. "Where's McNally?" Yank instantly demanded. "Hasn't he come in yet?" We told him we had seen nothing of the missing man. "Well, he'll drift in pretty soon," said Bagsby.
It's going to be hard to get out this way," complained Bagsby, "but it's the best we can do." He dismounted us, and we crept forward another half mile, leading our animals. "This is as close as I dare take the hosses," whispered Bagsby. "Vasquez, you stay here with them," he said in Spanish, "and when I yell twice quick and sharp, you answer so we'll know where to find you. Come on!"
Bagsby's chambers to consult, the Black Gentleman foolishly thinking that he could act as his own counsel, and fearing no attorney alive. But mark the superiority of British law, and see how the black pettifogger was defeated. Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into Chancery, and his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused to move a step farther in the matter.
Yank, somewhat hampered by Johnny, finished his cradles, and turned in to help us. Bagsby and Vasquez brought in several deer and an elk, and trapped many quail and hares. We fared royally, worked healthfully in the shade of our trees, and enjoyed huge smokes and powwows around our fire of an evening. Every night we drove the horses within the enclosure; and slept heavily.
Yank had figured out a scheme having to do with hollowed logs and canvas with cleats that would obviate the need of lumber. We deputed Johnny to help him. Bagsby and Vasquez were to hunt and fish for the general benefit, while the rest of us put up a stockade, or corral, and erected a cabin. I must confess the labour was pleasant. We had plenty of axes, and four of us were skilled in their use.
One day the two Spaniards, Buck Barry and I were at the cradle; Bagsby, Yank, and McNally were the hunters for the day. Johnny and Missouri Jones kept camp. We had had a most successful morning, and were just stacking our tools preparatory to returning to camp for dinner. Buck Barry was standing near some small sage bushes at the upper end of the diggings.
These men were the very first I happened to meet who had come into the country with a definite idea of settling. After the departure of this strong force, began our discussions as to the safeguarding of our gold. It had now reached a very considerable sum somewhere near thirty-five thousand dollars, as I remember it. Bagsby was very uneasy at its presence in camp.
For a long period we remained sullenly silent; then we would break into recriminations or into expressions of bitter or sarcastic dissatisfaction with the way things had been planned and carried out. Bagsby alone had the sense to turn in. We chewed the cud of bitter disappointment.
"You tarnation young grizzly b'ar!" said he. I wiped the water from my eyes. Johnny and Buck Barry ran up. Somehow they did not seem to be anticipating an Indian attack after all. Johnny ran up to thump me on the back. "Isn't it great!" he cried. "Right off the reel! First pop! Bagsby, old sport, you're a wonder!" He started for Bagsby, who promptly rushed for his long rifle.
But also Bagsby was convinced that there we should find richer diggings than any yet discovered. "It stands to reason," he argued, "that the farther up you git, the more gold there is. All this loose stuff yere is just what washed down from the main supply. If you boys reely wants rich diggings, then you want to push up into the Porcupine River country."
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