40 THE CARIBOO TRAIL

force of engineers and bluejackets and saw the
big gun hoisted ashore, he apologized, paid his
fine for the assault, and invited the officers
to a champagne dinner on Hill’s Bar. Both
sides to the quarrel cooled down and the riots
ended. The army stayed only to see the
miners wash the gold and then put back to
Victoria. The miners had learned that an
English judge and a field force could be put
on the ground in a week. September had
settled disorder among the Indians. January
settled disorder among the whites.

In the wild remote regions of the up-country
there was much ‘claim jumping.’ A man
lost his claim if he stopped mining for seventy-
two hours, and when the place of registration
was far from the find, ‘ pardners’ camped on
the spot in dugouts or in lean-tos of logs and
moss along the river-bank. There were fights
and there was killing, and sometimes the river
cast up its dead. The marvel is that there
were not more crimes. In every camp is a
species of human vulture living off other men’s
risk. Whenever a lone man came in from the
hills and paid for his purchase in nuggets, such
vultures would trail him back to his claim and
make what they could out of his discovery.

So, by pack-train and canoe, the miners