eering days he had run over a drunk at a street crossing. Gethings
of the San Pablo had taken a shot at a highwayman. Hooven had bayonetted
a French Chasseur at Sedan. An old Spanish-Mexican, a centenarian from
Guadalajara, remembered Fremont's stand on a mountain top in San Benito
County. The druggist had fired at a burglar trying to break into
his store one New Year's eve. Young Vacca had seen a dog shot in
Guadalajara. Father Sarria had more than once administered the
sacraments to Portuguese desperadoes dying of gunshot wounds. Even the
women recalled terrible scenes. Mrs. Cutter recounted to an interested
group how she had seen a claim jumped in Placer County in 1851, when
three men were shot, falling in a fusillade of rifle shots, and expiring
later upon the floor of her kitchen while she looked on. Mrs. Dyke
had been in a stage hold-up, when the shotgun messenger was murdered.
Stories by the hundreds went the round of the company. The air was
surcharged with blood, dying groans, the reek of powder smoke, the crack
of rifles. All the legends of '49, the violent, wild life of the early
days, were recalled to view, defiling before them there in an endless
procession under the glare of paper lanterns and kerosene lamps.

But the affair had aroused a combative spirit amongst the men of the
assembly. Instantly a spirit of aggression, of truculence, swelled up
underneath waistcoats and starched shirt bosoms. More than one offender
was promptly asked to "step outside." It was like young bucks excited
by an encounter of stags, lowering their horns upon the slightest
provocation, showing off before the does and fawns. Old quarrels were
remembered. One sought laboriously for slights and insults, veiled in
ordinary conversation. The sense of personal honour became refined to
a delicate, fine point. Upon the slightest pretext there was a haughty
drawing up of the figure, a twisting of the lips into a smile of scorn.
Caraher spoke of shooting S. Behrman on sight before the end of the
week. Twice it became necessary to separate Hooven and Cutter, renewing
their quarrel as to the ownership of the steer. All at once Minna
Hooven's "partner" fell upon the gayly apparelled clerk from
Bonneville, pummelling him with his fists, hustling him out of the hall,
vociferating that Miss Hooven had been grossly insulted. It took three
men to extricate the clerk from his clutches, dazed, gasping, his collar
unfastened and sticking up into his