26. CHAPTER XXVI.
A BLOODY MEETING.
I COULD not endure to remain in camp. I
went down the river and rested there, and
thought what I now should do. I began to
recover strength and resolution. I said, if I was
right at first I am still right. I resolved to return;
but no Indian would venture to go back again, and
I went alone. Leaving my horse on a ranch I entered
Yreka, and took the stage to Deadwood. I at once
went to the Indian camp, and told them of our loss.
They, superstitious like the others, resolved to gather
up their effects and supplies and return through the
mountains to the McCloud.
After seeing my old white friends a few hours, I
was told that Bill Hirst, the famous man-killer and
desperado, with whom I had unfortunately previously
become involved, had accused me of being with the
Indians, and also taking, or having a hand in taking,
his horse.
I cleaned and prepared my pistols for this man.
At another time I might have been disposed to
avoid this fellow. Now I wanted to meet him. It
was not particularly for what he had said or done,
but he had long been the terror of the camp; and
with something of a spirit of chivalry and determination
to revenge some wrongs of men less ready to
fight, I quietly resolved to meet this man in mortal
combat. Of course my own desperate condition
contributed to make me reckless, and tenfold more
ready to resent an insult. If I bore myself well
in the scene that followed it was owing more to that,
perhaps, than to manly valour.
As the men gathered into Deadwood camp, Hirst
among the others, I entered the main saloon and called
the boys to the bar in a long red and blue-shirted
line. We took a drink, and then, after the fashion of
the time, I drew a revolver, and declared myself chief
of the town. This is the way a man proceeded in
those days who had a wrong to avenge. If his
enemy was in camp this was his signal to “heel”
himself and come upon the ground. I passed from
one saloon to another, making this same declaration
until toward midnight. While standing with a knot
of miners at the bar of Dean's billiard saloon,
Hirst entered the far end of the establishment; a tall,
splendid fellow, with his hat pushed far back from his
brow, flashing eyes, and a pistol in his hand.
Not a sound was heard but the resolute tread of
Hirst, as he advanced partly toward me and partly
toward the billiard table, while the men at play
quietly fell back and left the red and white balls
dotting the green cloth.
Those around me sidled away right and left,
and I stood alone. Hirst advanced to the table,
darting his restless, keen eyes at me every second,
and, standing against and leaning over the table, all
the time watching me like a cat, he punched the
billiard balls savagely with the muzzle of his pistol.
He then drew back from the table, tossed his head,
whistled something, and moved in my direction.
My hand was on my pistol. The hammer was
raised and my finger touched the trigger; but Hirst,
without advancing further or saying a word, quietly
turned out at a side door and I saw no more of him
that night.
I had done nothing, said nothing, but answering
to the rough code and etiquette of the camp, the
victory was mine; for when a man enters a room
where his antagonist is, it is his place to make the
first demonstration. This Hirst did not openly do;
still no doubt he had done enough to satisfy his ambition
for that evening, and it was evident the end was
not yet. It was also evident, brave and reckless as
he was, that he sought rather to maintain his reputation
for recklessness than to meet me as he had met
so many others.
I went down the creek that night, after this event,
with my white friends, the gentlemen who kept
the library, and retired.
The next morning we took a walk about the
mining claim, returned, sat down in the shadow of
the cabin with a few friends who had gathered in,
and were talking over the little event of the evening
before, when Hirst and an officer came riding gaily
down the road, followed by several other gentlemen
on horseback, who were coming down to see the
result of a second meeting.
The cabins stood on the opposite side of the
stream from the road, and ditches had to be crossed
by the horsemen to reach us. The officer and Hirst—
both splendid horsemen as well as famous pistolshots—leapt
the ditches and came darting over; but
the others, whoever they were, as they had an open
view from where they stood, felt that they were
quite near enough, and reined their horses.
The men I was then with, and with whom I had
spent the night, were the most peaceful, noble, and
gentlemanly fellows in the camp, and I had no wish
to make their cabins the scene of a tragedy. I
was equally unwilling to submit to Hirst in any form
or manner, and hastily shaking hands with my
friends as the men advanced up the hill, I made off
up the mountain, perhaps fifty yards in advance of
the horsemen, and on foot.
Pistols flourished in the air, the men started forward
almost upon me, and it looked as if I was to be
shot down and trampled under foot. The hill side
[ILLUSTRATION]
PISTOL PRACTICE.
[Description: 645EAF. Illustration page. A man is standing on a rock outcropping overlooking a plain. One knee rests on some rocks and he holds onto a tree branch with his right hand. In his left hand he is aiming a pistol at a man on a horse in the valley below. The man on the horse is aiming a pistol at the man on the rock outcropping. There is another figure in the background of the plain, and there are two cabins in the distance.]
was steep and rocky, and the mettlesome little
Mexican horses refused to rush upon me across the
steep and broken ground, but began to spin round
like tops, and would not advance up the hill.
Some hard, iron-clad oaths, and then shot after
shot. I turned, drew a pistol, and the battle commenced
in earnest. The officer was unhorsed, and
lay bleeding on the ground from a frightful wound,
while Hirst, further down the hill, could only fire
random shots over the head of his restless and
plunging horse. It lasted but a few moments.
These men were both famous as pistol shots; but
they were not, here, equal to their reputation,
and that was because they were shooting on a range
they had never yet tried. They had only practised
on the level ground or in a well-arranged gallery,
and when it came to shooting up hill they were
helpless; and so it often happens with others. There
are other men, again, who are dead pistol shots
when allowed to draw deliberately and take aim
slowly and fire at leisure; but when compelled to
use the pistol instantly in some imminent peril,—the
only time they are ever really required to use it,—
they are slow, awkward, and embarrassed.
Let us for a moment follow the fortunes of these
two men before us: the one lying bleeding on the
ground, and the other flying down across the hill,
firing, and trying to hold his spirited horse to the
work.
