QWhy did the Preacher say that Spider was a brave man if he'd been drunk and disorderly when he was killed?
AThe Preacher was referring to the vote that the miners took & how they decided to stay on their land instead of accepting LaHood's offer to buy out their claims. The prospectors refused because they believed that the gold they'd eventually find would be worth a lot more than LaHood's offer of $1000 for each of their claims.Indeed, Spider was drunk & disorderly in town & Stockburn & his deputies wanted to scare him into leaving. However, Spider, in a fit of drunken rage, drew his pistol on them which was just the excuse the gang needed to kill him. Their punishment was pretty excessive & atrocious but they could also claim self-defense because Spider had drawn first.
QWhat is LaHood's business? Why did he want the prospectors land?
ALaHood had set up an operation to extract gravel from the mountains. The water-spraying machines would shoot millions of gallons of water in pressurized streams onto the slopes of the ravine. Dirt and gravel would flow down the slopes and through a series of sifters to separate the small rocks from the dirt. LaHood would then probably have the gravel collected and shipped to San Francisco & other West Coast cities for their own use -- laying roads, creating flower beds, roofing, etc.LaHood wanted the prospectors land to further his business. At some point he must have discovered that there was a large deposit of gravel in the prospectors region, Carbon Canyon, that he could mine. The prospectors, like Hull Barret says, have their claims on file in Sacramento legally. LaHood knows this fact & knows he can't legally do anything to force them out so he has his thugs terrorize them repeatedly to scare them off. The prospectors know that there's gold to be found in their stream that will be worth more than what the Preacher negotiated for them, $1000 each, so they vote to stay. As it turns out, both Hull & Spider find gold, Spider finding a large chunk that was obviously worth more than $1000.
QWhy didn't Barret use another method to remove the boulder in the stream instead of trying to break it apart with a sledgehammer?
AHull says that he'd thought of drilling & blasting the rock with dynamite but he knows it could damage the stream the camp is using to mine gold. They need the water to sift thru the dirt & rock to separate the gold. Blasting the rock could damage the stream & either ruin their mining operation or make it more difficult to continue it. After the Preacher stands up to & beats Club, who broke the rock, the prospectors realize that working together they can finally break up the rock & remove it.
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