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Updated: May 31, 2025
In the wider field of the West he had been successively a claim-jumper, a rustler of unbranded cattle, a telegraph operator in collusion with a gang of train-robbers, and finally a faro "lookout": the armed guard who sits at the head of the gaming-table in the untamed regions to kill and kill quickly if a dispute arises. Angels acknowledged his citizenship without joy.
Andy said, in the tone of one who knows exactly what he means to do. "This is my claim-jumper. Chances are I've got three more to handle or will have. Nothing like starting off right. Tell the boys just rag the fellow a little and ride on, like we did. Get the cattle up here and set Happy and Slim day-herding and the rest of us'll get busy." "You wouldn't tell for a dollar, would yuh?"
He's in this same country now." "I suppose I'll meet him I'll likely meet him to-night when I take you to the cabin on the river. You said his name was " "Jeffery Neilson." For all that he was prepared for it, the name was a straight-out body blow to Ben. He had still dared to hope that this girl was of no blood kin of the claim-jumper, Jeffery Neilson. The truth was now only too plain.
The man just over the line was listening while Good Indian spoke; the voice of Good Indian was even and quiet, as if he were indulging in casual small talk of the country, but that particular claim-jumper was not smiling. Even from a distance they could see that he was fidgeting uncomfortably while he listened, and that his breath was beginning to come jerkily.
As it happens, I know a little about the one they fixed upon. Mr. Hames is what you could call a professional claim-jumper, and it's fortunate that there's a weak spot or two in his career." Acton paused, and Nasmyth waited in tense expectancy until the older man turned to him again, with a twinkle in his eyes.
I thought so the night we went over to run the claim-jumper off Absalom Frost's land, within a week of my joining. It was over on Section Twenty-seven, that the claim-jumper had built a hut about where the schoolhouse now is, with a stable in one end of it, and a den in which to live in the other.
Surely, I thought, they were not going to tar and feather these harmless, good-for-nothing waifs of the frontier; and even as I thought it, I saw the glimmering of the fire they were kindling under the tar-kettle. "We want you, you infernal claim-jumper!" said McGill. "We'll show you that you can't steal the land from us hard-working settlers, you set of sneaks!
Grinning, he told them his plan, and set them grinning also. He gave them certain work to be done, and watched them scatter to do his bidding. Then he turned and rode away upon business of his own. The claim-jumper, watching the bench land through a pair of field glasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedly upon the young grass a mile or so away.
Or so the eye of a prospector wanders querulously over staked and established claims on the mountainside, and seeks the virgin land beyond; unless, indeed, the prospector be dishonest. But Alice was no claim-jumper so long as the notice of ownership was plainly posted.
"So if the Bunker gang gets after you," suggested H. L., "there'd be somebody paid to take the load of buckshot. Well, here's Jake. He's our local desperado. Ask Dick McGill, eh, Jake? He dared the shotgun the night they run that claim-jumper off. I know a feller that was there, and seen it when he wa'n't seared blind. Take Jake."
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