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263 "They came up the river, yelling like so many devils, and drove our pickets in like chaff before 'em; but when I got 'em jest in the right spot, I give the word, and we riz on 'em. I never did feel much compunction at taking life before, leastwise the life of a damned redskin; but the fact is, that slaughter was dreadful, and it came to be a perfect butchery before we got through. I swear to man that the Gila riz over a foot; though mind, boys, I don't say it was all owin' to the blood which ran into it. There was about two thousand dead Mojaves a floatin' down the stream, an' it's likely they lodged and choked it up at some pint where it was narrer like, an' so set the water back, more or less. Right in the thickest of the fight, when it seemed for a few minutes as if the Mojaves—who was game to the last; I'll say that injustice to 'em—was goin' to get the best of us, after all, I sailed in myself, and went for their big chief, and downed him with a blow from the butt of my revolver; an' I was jest cockin' my weapon to give him a settler, when old Ickthermiree, his second in command, an' about half a dozen leftenants, lighted on me all at onst, an' we clinched and went down all in a heap. I got one arm loose, an' pulling out my old Arkansas toothpick, commenced slashin' 'em right and left, when"

Concatenation Bill never told us what happened after that.

When he commenced the story, the stranger, who was lying some feet away, listened attentively for a few moments, then rose slowly to a sitting posture, and then to his feet. As the story progressed, he