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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 determi nation 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