left by the crowd. His foot struck one of the loaded burros in the
eye. The animal staggered over against the wall of men, trampling on
somebody's feet. Somebody yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping on
somebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. More
of the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. His
pony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. Then
Algy was presently in trouble.

There had been no Chinese in Goldite camp, largely on account of race
prejudice engendered and fostered by the working men, who still
maintained the old Californian hatred against the industrious
Celestials. In the mob, unfortunately near the center of confusion,
was a half-drunken miner, rancorous as poison. He was somewhat roughly
jostled by the press escaping Algy's pony.

"Ye blank, blank chink--I'll fix ye fer that!" he bawled at the top of
his voice, and heaving his fellow white men right and left he laid
vicious hands on the helpless cook and, dragging him down, went at him
in savage brutality.

"Belay there, you son of a shellfish!" yelled Napoleon, dismounting and
madly attempting to push real men away. "I'll smash in your
pilot-house! I'll---- Leave me git in there to Algy!"

Gettysburg, too, was on the ground. He, Bostwick, and a hundred men
were madly crowded in together, where two or three were pushing back
the throng and yelling to Algy to fight.

Algy was fighting. He was also spouting most awful Chinese oaths,
sufficient to warp an ordinary spine and wither a common person's