Big Sam’s warning was enough to drive me once more to the Kendrick house
to make certain that all was secure. I could suppose, from his words,
that he did not expect an immediate attack, yet it was by no means
unlikely that Little John’s ruffians would take advantage of the
disorders of the night to make their attack. But all was quiet in the
neighborhood, and Andrews reported nothing more threatening than a few
disorderly hoodlums who had gone shouting past an hour or two before.
I confided to Andrews the warning of an intended attack, and directed
him to engage six men instead of the two I had previously ordered.
"I think I can find the right sort," he said. "There’s some boys I used
to know up in Nevada when we were holding down some claims against big
odds. Six of ’em would chew up a hundred of these cigarette-smoking
hoods." And he told with keen enjoyment of the adventurous days of the
claim-jumpers, when a man’s life and property depended on his strength
and courage and sureness of aim.
I paced the watch with him till the stars began to pale before the
coming day, and then gladly sought home and bed. My sleep was troubled
with vague, indefinable dreams of coming danger, and it was late when I
rose with the presentiment that a crisis was approaching.
It was a Sunday morning, yet the apprehensions roused by my dreams found
abundant reinforcement when I was once more astir. The echoes from the
Nob Hill meeting were still to be heard in the city, rousing
apprehension among the orderly. The newspapers treated it as the
sensation of the day, yet, from their comments, I saw that they had no
conception of the real designs that lay behind the activity of the
anti-coolie agitators. Clark reported to me that the Council of Nine
had been in session till long after midnight, and that the anti-coolie
clubs had been ordered to hold daily drills. One of the two spies who
were detailed to keep watch on Peter Bolton came at noon with the report
that Bolton had reached his office before seven o’clock in the morning,
where he had received a visit from Waldorf, Parks and Reddick, the three
most active members of the Council. As they left Bolton’s office,
Reddick had been heard to say, "Before the week ends, we shall be
masters of the city." And as a final fillip to anxiety, I found at my
office a tangle-worded letter, which I recognized as the product of Kwan
Luey’s pen, that recalled the warnings I had received from Big Sam.
With this accumulation of mental disturbance, I took my way at last to
the Kendrick house, to lay the tale of impending dangers before my
client, and to give hint to the young ladies of the need for caution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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