"I went back to my shanty, an' found my Bible, an' read it many days, never stirrin' out. I remember there was one passage that seemed to accuse myself, an' to explain my own failure--'If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, "Thou art my confidence"; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, an' because mine hand had gotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walkin' in brightness, an' my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above.'
"I'd done all that. When I'd looked at the sun, I'd seen gold; when I'd looked at the moon, I'd thought of silver; an' when I'd found both the silver an' the gold in the Ophir, by Old Man Caldwell's Spring, my mouth had kissed my own hand--an' not God's. An' what I'd done, every one else was doin' in Virginia City; an' the Lord o' Hosts was angry, an' that was why men were killin' one another. So, when I'd sat still an' figured it all out, I said, 'God spoke to me because I'm the one man on the Comstock who, when he's found gold, tries to bury it; an' He spoke to me because He wants me to join with Him, an' help Him to shake the heavens.' So out I walked, day after day, an' watched things growin' from bad to worse; an' when I'd seen all I wanted, I come home an' read my Bible--I knew that when God had need o' me He would send His messenger.
"One night a miner come to my cabin, an' he said, 'Are you ready to fight for the Fair-Haired Annie?'
"'I'm ready,' I said, 'but what's it all about?'
"'From a drift, a hundred feet down,' said he, 'that we're workin' on at present, we can hear the picks o' the Bloody Thunder drawin' nearer an' nearer; they'll break through to-morrer into one o' our ledges.'
"'We're goin' to have a band o' men waitin' for 'em in the dark on our side o' the ledge, an' everyone o' those men is goin' to be armed. The moment that the picks o' the Bloody Thunder drive through an' the wall goes down, the men o' the Fair-Haired Annie are goin' to fire.'
"'All right,' I said. 'I'm wi' you. I'll be there.'
"So next day I, an' twenty other men, were lowered down the shaft; an' before we saw daylight again, the Fair-Haired Annie an' the Bloody Thunder had gone to war. That was the first o' the underground fights which took place on the Comstock. I picked my men, and paid 'em ten dollars a day, an' called my gang 'The Avengers o' the Lord.' No one 'cept myself knew what that meant, but they learnt t' fear us, for we fought to the death. Often when I was waitin' in the dark, listenin' to the sound o' the rival miners comin' nearer, I would repeat to myself the words, 'I will make a man more precious 'an gold; even a man than the golden wedge o' Ophir.' An' when a poor chap lay dyin', I would say to him those words."