When the news of this marriage reached the camp demons of laughter and
disorder were let loose. Starting from somewhere afar off, a loud
procession formed. With camp-kettles for drums and aspen-bark whistles
for pipes, with caterwaul and halloo, the whole loosely cohering army of
prospectors surrounded the little log cabin of the Maggie Mine and
shouted in wild discord:
"Bidwell! Come forth!"
"A speech! A speech!"
Bidwell was for poking his revolver out through the unchinked walls and
ordering the mob to disperse, but his wife was diplomatic.
"'Tis but an excuse to get drink," she said. "Go give them treat."
So Bidwell went forth, and, while a couple of stalwart friends lifted
him high, he shouted, sharp and to the point, "It's on me, Clark!"
The mob, howling with delight, rushed upon him and bore him away,
struggling and sputtering, to Clark's saloon, where kegs of beer were
broached and the crowd took a first deep draught. Bidwell, in alarm for
Maggie, began to fight to get back to the cabin. But cries arose for the
bride.
"The bride--let's see the bride!"
Bidwell expostulated. "Oh no! Leave her alone. Are you gentlemen? If you
are, you won't insist on seeing her."
In the midst of the crowd a clear voice rang out:
"The bride, is it? Well, here she is. Get out o' me way."
"Clear the road there for the bride!" yelled a hundred voices as Maggie
walked calmly up an aisle densely walled with strange men. She had been
accustomed to such characters all her life, and knew them too well to be
afraid. Mounting a beer-keg, she turned a benign face on the crowd. The
light of the torches lighted her hair till it shone like spun gold in a
halo round her head. She looked very handsome in the warm, sympathetic
light of the burning pitch-pine.
"Oh yiss, Oi'll make a speech; I'm not afraid of a handful of
two-by-fours like you tenderfeet from the valley, and when me speech is
ended ye'll go home and go to bed. Eleven days ago Sherm, me man,
discovered this lode. Since then we've both worked night and day to git
out the ore--we're dog-tired--sure we are--but we're raisonable folk and
here we stand. Now gaze y'r fill and go home and l'ave us to rest--like
y'r dacent mothers would have ye do."
"Good for you, Maggie!" called old Angus Craig, who stood near her.
"Mak' way, lads!"
The men opened a path for the bride and groom and raised a thundering
cheer as they passed.
Old Angus Craig shook his head again and said to Johnson: "Sik a luck
canna last. To strike a lode and win a braw lass a' in the day, ye may
say. Hoo-iver, he waited lang for baith."