246 Sport and Life. 



their fellow miners to the same cruel end which they had threatened 

 to the manager, for they deliberately set to work to ring the men at 

 work into the hoisting cage with the intention of throwing a stick of 

 dynamite with a lighted fuse down the shaft, which would, of 

 course, send them all to a shocking death. Regrettable as it is, 

 there is no doubt that the Western labouring man not the 

 prospector, for him I have found, with but few exceptions, to be a 

 manly and courageous fellow when his passions are inflamed by 

 the terrible stuff on which he loves to intoxicate himself, and, 

 when under the spell of the glib tongues of inciting agitators, 

 will commit crimes of the foulest kind. 



With such surroundings I knew I had to reckon on the occasion 

 in question. Sprowle was just the man to inflame the score or so 

 of drunken railway hands to participate in mob law, and it was 

 merely a question whether the odds of two sober men against two 

 dozen drunken men, led by a sober but half crazy desperado, was 

 not too heavy a one. 



My refusal to leave the town seemed to surprise Sprowle's 

 party, and it upset their plans, which, as I subsequently heard, was 

 to get me away from Sandpoint, stop the train in the woods, and, 

 after a rope's end inquiry, let Sprowle wreak his revenge. Their 



next move was to intimidate young F , who, however, remained 



perfectly uninfluenced by their threats, and told them to go to the 

 warm place that figures so largely in Western conversational 

 efforts. But for his popularity in the place, the proposed " rush " 

 would, I firmly believe, have occurred, and blood would have been 

 spilt. One fellow, a bridge night-watchman, on whose vigilance 

 depended the lives of all the railway passengers passing at night 

 time 1 over those many miles of long wooden trestle bridges near 

 Sandpoint, which were constantly catching fire made bolder than 

 the rest by the " tangle-foot" he had imbibed, volunteered to take 

 me single-handed, and he really did burst in the flimsy door of our 



shack. Young F , disdaining to use firearms, made a sorry 



looking individual of this bold " bad man," and put him " to sleep " 

 with his fists very effectually. In the struggle in the dark, the 



