"Pshaw, Doctor," said Randall, "that's by no means certain."
"It's certain enough," insisted the doctor.
"I should think the miners would drive them out," I said.
"Drive them out!" cried the doctor bitterly; "they're too busy, and their own toes haven't been trodden on, and they're too willing to let well enough alone so as not to be interrupted in their confounded digging for gold."
"They're not organized and they are quite justly unwilling to get in a row with that gang when they know they'd be killed," stated Randall quietly. "They're getting on 'well enough,' and they'll continue to be run by this lot of desperadoes until something desperate happens. They want to be let alone."
The doctor recovered his equanimity with an effort.
"They present the curious spectacle," said he thoughtfully, "of the individual man in a new untrammelled liberty trying to escape his moral obligations to society. He escapes them for a while, but they are there; and in the end he must pay in violence."
"If the doctor is going to begin that sort of thing, I'm going," said he.
"Oh, Doctor, one moment!" I called; then, as he returned. "Tell me, who and what is Danny Randall?"
"Danny Randall," said the doctor, a humorous twinkle coming into his eyes, "is a gentleman of fortune."
"And now we know a lot more than we did before!" said Johnny, as we watched the receding figures.
We ate a very silent supper, washed our dishes methodically, and walked up to town. The Bella Union was the largest of the three gambling houses--a log and canvas structure some forty feet long by perhaps twenty wide. A bar extended across one end, and the gaming tables were arranged down the middle. A dozen oil lamps with reflectors furnished illumination.
All five tables were doing a brisk business; when we paused at the door for a preliminary survey, the bar was lined with drinkers, and groups of twos and threes were slowly sauntering here and there or conversing at the tops of their voices with many guffaws. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. Johnny stepped just inside the door, moved sideways, and so stood with his back to the wall. His keen eyes went from group to group slowly, resting for a moment in turn on each of the five impassive gamblers and their lookouts, on the two barkeepers, and then one by one on the men with whom the place was crowded. Following his, my glance recognized at a corner of the bar Danny Randall with five rough-looking miners. He caught my eye and nodded. No one else appeared to notice us, though I imagined the noise of the place sank and rose again at the first moment of our entrance.