May 17 Saturday – Sam wrote from Aurora to Orion about a tiff with three other armed miners who entered and worked Sam’s claim. Such claim jumps could be dangerous business, and Sam referred to the killing of one Gephart on Apr. 11 over such a conflict [MTL 1: 215]. Transcribed from MTP’s “drop-in” letter file:
I thought it was a blank deed which Sam Montgomery sent me.
Send those Spanish spurs that hang in the office, out to “Thomas Messersmith, care of Billy Clagett,” by some safe person. I wore them in from Humboldt.
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That is well. Let Mollie stay where she is, for the present. Perhaps you had better send me your note to Teall. Never send anything by that d—-d stage again, that can come by MAIL, as I have said before. The pkg envelops cost me 50 cents.
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I hope Barstow will leave the “S.L.C.” off my Gate City letters, in case he publishes them. Put my Enterprise letters in the scrap book—but send no extracts from them East. You perceive that I am not in a high good humor. For several reasons. One—Raish came home from the mill this morning, after working the whole night, and found a letter from Bob [Howland?], in which he learned that no sale had been effected. This reduced his spirits to the lowest possible notch, for he is out of money, or nearly so….Another thing is, two or three of the old “Salina” company entered our hold on the Monitor yesterday morning, before our men got there, and took possession, armed with revolvers. And according to the d—d laws of the forever d—d country, nothing but District Court (and there ain’t any) can touch the matter….We went up and demanded possession, and they refused. Said they were in the hole, armed, and meant to die in it, if necessary….Now you understand the shooting scrape in which Gephart was killed the other day.
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Ask Tom to give my dear love to Miss P.—she with the long curls, out there under the hill.
Yr. Bro. Sam.

P.S.—Crooker is strapped, and is anxious for you to get his scrip and sell it at as good price as you can, and send him the money. Charge the fee—nobody remits fees for me here, by a d—d sight. Charge everybody fees. Col. Youngs wants you to see Kidder or Gen. North and ask when the California boundary will be run and finished….We enter suit to-morrow to get possession of the Monitor.
Note: Colonel Samuel Youngs (1803-1890). MTL annotations reveal that “Miss P.” was Carrie Pixley. William E. Teall sold Orion 25 mining feet in 1861. D.C. Crooker was a clerk at the district recorder’s office who had mining claims with Robert Howland; Sam mentioned Crooker in earlier letters, on Apr. 17 and May 4. This P.S. was not in the printed volume, but in “drop-in” letters.