Here is a new world being fashioned under my very
feet. I will take part in the work, and a portion of
it shall be mine."
All this city had been built, all this country opened up, in less than two years. Twenty months before, only the Indian inhabited here ; he was lord absolute of the land. But gold had been found on this spot by a party of roving mountaineers; the news had gone abroad, and people poured in and had taken possession in a day, without question and without ceremony.
And the Indians ? They were pushed aside. At first they were glad to make the strangers welcome ; but when they saw where it would all lead, they grew sullen arid concerned. Then trouble arose ; they retreated, and Ben Wright took the field and followed them, as we have seen.
I hurried on a mile or so to the foot-hills, and stood in the heart of the placer mines. Now the smoke from the low chimneys of the log cabins began to rise and curl through the cool, clear air on every hand, and the miners to come out at the low doors; great hairy, bearded, six foot giants, hatless, and half-dressed.
They stretched themselves in the sweet, frosty air, shouted to each other in a sort of savage banter, washed their hands and faces in the gold-pan that stood by the door, and then entered their cabins again, to partake of the eternal beans and bacon and coffee, and coffee and bacon and beans.
