Chapter VIII. The Knife - Page 2

"I don't like the look of this," observed the Lieutenant, thoughtfully. "I'm afraid there's some kind of a job on foot."

"There's nothing they can do," Gale answered. "We've got our ground staked out, and it's up to them to choose what's left."

They were nearly ready to set out for Flambeau when the five men returned.

"Before you go," said Stark, "I think we'd better organize our mining district. There are enough present to do it."

"We can make the kind of laws we want before the gang comes along," Runnion chimed in, "and elect a recorder who will give us a square deal."

"I'll agree if we give Lee the job," said Gale. "It's coming to him as the discoverer, and I reckon the money will be handy, seeing the hard luck he's played in."

"That's agreeable to me," Stark replied, and proceeded forthwith to call a miners' meeting, being himself straightway nominated as chairman by one of the strangers. There was no objection, so he went in, as did Lee, who was made secretary, with instructions to write out the business of the meeting, together with the by-laws as they were passed.

The group assembled in the cleared space before the cabin to make rules and regulations governing the district, for it is a custom in all mining sections removed from authority for the property holders thus to make local laws governing the size of claims, the amount of assessment work, the size of the recorder's fees, the character of those who may hold mines, and such other questions as arise to affect their personal or property interests. In the days prior to the establishment of courts and the adoption of a code of laws for Alaska, the entire country was governed in this way, even to the adjudication of criminal actions. It was the primitive majority rule that prevails in every new land, and the courts later recognized and approved the laws so made and administered, even when they differed in every district, and even when these statutes were often grotesque and ridiculous. As a whole, however, they were direct in their effect and worked no hardship; in fact, government by miners' meeting is looked upon to this day, by those who lived under it, as vastly superior to the complicated machinery which later took its place.

The law permits six or more people to organize a mining district and adopt articles of government, so this instance was quite ordinary and proper.

Lee had come by his learning slowly, and he wrote after the fashion of a school-boy, who views his characters from every angle and follows their intricacies with corresponding movements of the tongue, hence the business of the meeting progressed slowly.

It was of wondrous interest to Necia to be an integral part of such important matters, and she took pride in voting on every question; but