All of them were fire-eaters, reckless, and sure to
make trouble. Two pieces of artillery were reported coming down the
Sacramento to aid all prisoners, but especially Billy Mulligan. The
numbers were not in themselves formidable as opposed to the enrollment
of the Vigilance Committee, but it must be remembered that the city was
full of scattered warriors and of cowed members of the underworld
waiting only leaders and a rallying point. Even were the Vigilantes to
win in the long run, the material for a very pretty civil war was ready
to hand. Two hundred men were hastily put to filling gunnybags with sand
and to fortifying not only headquarters but the streets round about.
Cannon were mounted, breastworks were piled, and embrasures were cut. By
morning Fort Gunnybags, as headquarters was henceforth called, had come
into existence.
The fire-eaters arrived that night, but they were not five hundred
strong, as excited rumor had it. They disembarked, greeting the horde of
friends who had come to meet them, marched in a body to Fort Gunnybags,
looked it over, stuck their hands into their pockets, and walked
peacefully away to the nearest bar-rooms. This was the wisest move on
their part, for by now the disposition of the Vigilante men was so
complete that nothing short of regularly organized troops could
successfully have dislodged them.
Pages:
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218