"
"That's just my notion, Wat; and d--n 'em, if the boys are only true to
the hub, we can row this guard up salt river in no time and less. Look
you now--let's put the thing on a good footing, and have no further
disturbance. Put all the boys on shares--equal shares--in the diggings,
and we'll club strength, and can easily manage these chaps. There's no
reason, indeed, why we shouldn't; for if we don't fix them, we are done
up, every man of us. We have, as you see and have tried, a pretty strong
fence round us, and, if our men stand to it, and I see not why they
shouldn't, Fullam can't touch us with his squad of fifty, ay, and a
hundred to the back of 'em."
The plan was feasible enough in the eyes of men to whom ulterior
consequences were as nothing in comparison with the excitement of the
strife; and even the most scrupulous among them were satisfied, in a
little time, and with few arguments, that they had nothing to gain and
everything to lose by retiring from the possessions in which they had
toiled so long.
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