Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/101

 luck if he did not find himself in the calaboose to boot, for contempt of court.

"Call the first witness; call Charles O. Brown."

Mr. Charles O. Brown, under oath, stated his name, residence, and occupation, and was then directed to show to the judge and jury how the prisoner—Duffield—had drawn his revolver the day previous.

"Well, jedge, the way he drawed her was jest this." And suiting the action to the word, Mr. Charles O. Brown, the main witness for the prosecution, drew a six-shooter, fully cocked, from the holster on his hip. There was a ripple of laughter in the courtroom, as every one saw at once the absurdity of trying to hold one man responsible for the misdemeanor of which a whole community was guilty, and in a few minutes the matter was ''nolle prossed''.

I will end up the career of the marshal in this chapter, as we shall have no further cause to introduce him in these pages. His courage was soon put to the severest sort of a test when a party of desperadoes from Sonora, who had been plundering in their own country until driven across the line, began their operations in Arizona. At the dead of night they entered Duffield's house, and made a most desperate assault upon him while asleep in his bed. By some sort of luck the blow aimed with a hatchet failed to hit him on head or neck—probably his assailants were too drunk to see what they were doing—and chopped out a frightful gash in the shoulder, which would have killed the general run of men. Duffield, as has been shown, was a giant in strength, and awakened by the pain, and at once realizing what had happened, he sprang from his couch and grappled with the nearest of the gang of burglars, choked him, and proceeded to use him as a weapon with which to sweep out of the premises the rest of the party, who, seeing that the household had been alarmed, made good their escape.

Duffield was too much exhausted from loss of blood to retain his hold upon the rascal whom he had first seized, so that Justice did not succeed in laying her hands upon any of the band. When Duffield recovered sufficiently to be able to reappear on the streets, he did not seem to be the same man. He no longer took pleasure in rows, but acted like one who had had enough of battles, and was willing to live at peace with his fellow-men.