The long room, low and bare, was filled with silent, bearded men.  Two or three smoky little lamps but served to emphasize the gloom.  At the farther end, on chairs raised a few inches above the level of the floor, sat John Ellsworth and Porter Barkley.  The latter was the first to address the meeting, and he made what might have been called an able effort.

Ignoring the fact that civilization had been summoned to the bar of Heart’s Desire for trial, and assuming that barbarism was put upon its defensive, he pointed out to the men of Heart’s Desire that they had long been living in a state of semi-savagery.  To be sure, they had not yet had among them men of executive and organizing minds, but the fulness of years had now brought this latter privilege.

He paused, waiting a space for applause, but no applause came.  He felt upon him scores of straight-forward eyes, unwavering, steady.

The town, in its new shape, he hurried on to explain, ought, of course, to wipe out and forget its past.  Even the name, “Heart’s Desire,” was an absurd one, awkward, silly, meaning nothing.  They had tremendous coal-fields directly at their doors.  He suggested the name of Coalville as an eminently practical one for the reconstructed community.  His suggestion brought out a stir, a shuffle, a sigh; but no more.

Mr. Barkley declared that there must be a fundamental revolution as to the old ideas of Heart’s Desire.  There had been no courts.  There had been no government, no society.  It was time that the old days of the mining camp and cow town were done, time that miner’s law and no law at all should give way to the laws of the Territory, to the laws of the United States government, and to the greater law of industrial progress.

He additionally, and with a hardening of his voice, pointed out that, under the provisions of the laws of society and civilization, property belonged only to the man who held the legal title to it.  The gentlemen representing this new railroad were the first to assume legal title to this town site; they had taken all necessary steps, and intended to hold this town site in the courts as their own.  Their expenses would be very large, and they proposed to be repaid.  They felt that their holdings in the valley would warrant them in going ahead rapidly with their plans of development.  They had bought some few claims in the coal-fields, had filed on others for themselves, and had taken over other and abandoned claims on both sides of the valley.  Their disposition was not to be hostile.  They hoped, after the preliminary organization of the town government should have been completed, to have the unanimous ratification of all their actions.  They felt most friendly, most friendly indeed, toward the hardy citizens of this remote community.  They proposed to help them all they could.  He felt it a distinguished privilege for himself to be the man to take the first steps for the organization of the new commercial metropolis of Coalville.