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The millmen resolved to bestow public honors on Dominicus Pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail, or refresh him with an ablution at the town pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of the news.
"I heard down in Goldpan," he squeaked one night, "that Wells Fargo takes out five or six bars of bullion for him every mill clean-up. And you can bet none of it ever gets away from that old stiff." "But how does this news leak out?" Dick asked, wondering at such a tale, when millmen and miners were distinguished for keeping inviolate the secrets of the property on which they worked.
"As the Pelton wheel seems to find the most frequent application in California, it may be convenient for millmen to have the following rule, applicable to these wheels: "When the head of water is known in feet, multiply it by 0.0024147, and the product is the horse-power obtainable from one miner's inch of water.
Three Burley drill runners tinkered with their machines, and scraped off the verdigris and accumulated dust of storage; millmen began to reset the tables, strip the damaged plates, and lay in new water pipes to drip ceaselessly over the powered ore. Over all these watched Bill with his bandaged face, rumbling orders here and there, and tirelessly active.
"Gentlemen and ladies," said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the millmen, and the factory girls, "I can assure you that some unaccountable mistake, or, more probably, a wilful falsehood, maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham's credit, has excited this singular uproar.
Before long the millmen were regaled by the sight of a snorting little upright engine connected by a flapping, sagging belt to a small circular saw. Two men and two boys worked like beavers. The racket and confusion, shouts, profanity and general awkwardness were something tremendous.
In the clear moonlight he could see one or the other of the millmen always on watch, his shotgun across his knees. Evidently they did not intend to be surprised by any night work. The young fellow returned very thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring up against the canvas of the tent. Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation with Billy the teamster.
Don't s'pose he'd remember me now, and don't know as I'd want him to. Any man that works for Bully comes about as near givin' away his heart's blood as any one could, and live." The voices went rumbling on, and Dick sat thinking of the strange, powerful man of the Rattler. "Three of the millmen know their business," mumbled Bill, as if all the time he had been mentally appraising his force.
Here's a list," Dick answered, handing her a memorandum calling for go many millmen, so many drill runners, swampers, car handlers, and so forth; in all, a list of twenty odd. "Who told you to come here?" She exploded the question as if it were vital. "Park. Bells Park." She laughed mirthlessly between lips that did not smile and regular, white teeth. But her laugh belied her lack of sympathy.
As if imbued with new energy, he ordered one of the idle millmen to act as stoker, if he cared to do so, which was cheerfully done, had the extra pump attached, saw the fire roaring from another boiler, and by noon the shaft rang with the steady throb of the pistons pounding and pulling the waste water upward. The last of the unwatering of the Cross was going forward in haste.
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