"Matter enough--matter enough! and you will think so too--to he robbed of our findings by a parcel of blasted 'coons, that haven't soul enough to keep them freezing. Why, this is the matter, you must know: only last week, we miners of Tracy's diggings struck upon a fine heap of the good stuff, and have been gathering gold pretty freely ever since. All the boys have been doing well at it; better than they ever did before--and even Munro there, and Rivers, who have never been very fond of work, neither of them, have been pretty busy ever since; for, as I tell you, we were making a sight of money, all of us. Well now, somehow or other, our good luck got to the ears of George Dexter and his men, who have been at work for some time past upon old Johnson's diggings about fourteen miles up on the Sokee river. They could never make much out of the place, I know; for what it had good in it was pretty much cleaned out of it when I was there, and I know it can't get better, seeing that gold is not like trees, to grow out every year. Well, as I say, George Dexter, who would just as lief do wrong as right, and a great deal rather, got tired, as well as all his boys, of working for the fun of the thing only; and so, hearing as I say of our good luck, what did they do but last night come quietly down upon our trace, and when Jones, the old man we kept there as a kind of safeguard, tried to stop 'em, they shot him through the body as if he had been a pig. His son got away when his father was shot, though they did try to shoot him too, and come post haste to tell us of the transaction. There stands the lad, his clothes all bloody and ragged. He's had a good run of it through the bushes, I reckon." "And they are now in possession of your lands?" "Every fellow of 'em, holding on with gun in hand, and swearing to be the death of us, if we try for our own. But we'll show them what's what, or I can't fling a hatchet or aim a rifle. This, now, Master Colleton, is the long and the short of the matter." "And what do you propose to do?" asked Ralph, of his informant. "Why, what should we do, do you think, but find out who the best men are, and put them in possession. There's not a two-legged creature among us that won't be willing to try that question, any how, and at any time, but more particularly now, when everything depends upon it." "And when do you move, Forrester?" "Now, directly--this very minute. The boys have just sent for some more powder, and are putting things in readiness for a brush."