The men he employed were for the most part drawn from the dregs--sheep-stealers, cattle-thieves, smugglers, many of them ex-convicts--a fierce, unruly lot, hating all law and order, yet submitting for the sake of that same precious yellow dust that they ground from the foundation stones of the world.
Personally, Fortescue was known but to the very few, but his methods were known to all.

He paid them generously, but he ruled them with a rigid discipline that knew no relaxation.

It was murmured that Fletcher Hill--the hated police-magistrate--was at his back, for he never failed to visit the mine when his duty took him in that direction, and there was something of military precision in its management which was strongly reminiscent of his forbidding personality.

It was Fletcher Hill who meted out punishment to the transgressors who were brought before him at the police-court at Trelevan, and his treatment was usually swift and unsparing.

No prisoner ever expected mercy from him.
He was hated at the mine with a fierce hatred, in which Fortescue had but a very minor share.