But what have you to report?
What's in the wind now?"
"I hear but little, sir. There is some talk about a detachment of the
Georgia guard, something like a hundred men, to be sent out expressly
for our benefit; but I look upon this as a mistake. Their eye is rather
upon the miners, and the Indian gold lands and those who dig it, and not
upon those who merely take it after it is gathered. I have heard, too,
of something like a brush betwixt Fullam's troop and the miners at
Tracy's diggings, but no particulars, except that the guard got the
worst of it."
"On that point I am already advised. That is well for us, since it will
turn the eye of the authorities in a quarter in which we have little to
do. I had some hand in that scrape myself, and set the dogs on with this
object; and it is partly on this matter that I would confer with you,
since there are some few of our men in the village who had large part in
it, who must not be hazarded, and must yet stay there."
"If the brush was serious, captain, that will be a matter of some
difficulty; for of late, there has been so much of our business done,
that government, I believe, has some thought of taking it up, and in
order to do so without competition, will think of putting us down.
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