That the lawyer was not without reason for his precaution, Ralph had soon abundant testimony himself.  Arms and the munitions of war, as if by magic, had been rapidly collected.  Some of the party, it is true, had made their appearance at the place of prayer with rifles and fowling pieces, a practice which occasioned no surprise.  But the managers of the present movement had seemingly furnished all hands with weapons, offensive and defensive, of one kind or another.  Some were caparisoned with pistols, cutlasses, and knives; and, not to speak of pickaxes and clubs, the array was sufficiently formidable.  The attitude of all parties was warlike in the extreme, and the speeches of those who, from time to time, condescended to please themselves by haranguing their neighbors, teemed with nothing but strife and wounds, fight and furious performance.

The matter, as we have already remarked, was not made out by the youth without considerable difficulty.  He obtained, however, some particulars from the various speakers, which, taken in connection with the broken and incoherent sentences of Forrester, who dashed into speech at intervals with something of the fury of a wounded panther in a cane-brake, contributed at length to his full enlightenment.

“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.”