Slocum and the Miner's Justice by Jake Logan

Author:Jake Logan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

11

“Gawdamn, we got us a real Chinatown going up here,” Lucy said with her hands on her hips as she studied all the activity.

“Yeah, honey, we got them working, ain’t we,” Bums said with his arm over her shoulder. Their small tents were in a row, and the workers scurried around using wheelbarrows. The sound of picking and shoveling came from the shaft. Busy as beavers, they were. Burns felt smug about his mining operation.

The next thing he needed was some wagons to haul the ore and a sluice at Owl Creek to wash it in the creek. He had found several pinhead nuggets in the ore they’d brought him. In a short while, he would be sporting around San Francisco with Lucy on his arm and folks saying things like: “Isn’t that the gold baron of Arizona?”

He needed a better foreman than that rat-faced Frenchman Default. If the Chinese weren’t such good workers, he would have had to boss them himself. He’d speak to Mick about someone else doing the job instead of Default.

“They finding anything worthwhile?” Lucy asked, breaking his thoughts.

“Plenty of color. I’ve checked several samples. We can wash the loose stuff in a sluice and get lots of gold out of it.”

“Down in the creek, huh?”

“Yeah, but that’s no problem. We’ll hire a few teamsters to haul the ore, and I’ll move half this bunch down there to wash it. Look here.” He held up a small nugget that shined in the sun. “See there. I found it just dry-panning with my hand this morning.”

“How much are them Chinks stealing from you?” she asked under her breath. She nodded in their direction as the wind swept her duster open. Then she quickly closed it so none of them could see her white legs.

“They steal any, they’re dead.”

“Ha, them slant-eyed bastards are probably hiding your nuggets away like a squirrel does nuts.”

“I catch one doing it, I’ll cut his throat.”

“Suit yourself, but they are stealing from you.”

“How do you know so much about them stealing?”

“I was raised in California. Everyone there knows how they steal.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for that. The biggest thing is getting a stamping mill set up to break up the rock so we can get the gold out of that. That will cost lots of money.”

“If you make enough out of the loose gold, you can buy one,” she said flippantly. He realized she had no idea of the amount of money required for a stamper operation.

Mines required investors from places like New York, San Francisco—hell, even St. Louis, if you could find one there with enough money. He’d probably have to issue stocks to raise enough capital—maybe on that Mountain Board of Trade in Denver.

“That sluicing business in the creek won’t go fast enough,” he said to her. Women simply did not understand about business. Oh, well, she could do other things quite well. He reached down and patted her butt.

His action drew a sleepy-eyed suggestive look from her. Lucy was always in heat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.