kson asked her
some questions that deeply wounded her. She returned home weeping. My
brothers and I felt that the questions had been needlessly offensive,
and after an indignant discussion of the matter, I undertook to
remonstrate personally with Mr. Dickson.

If I had been as wise, then, as I sometimes think I am now, I should
have realized that a meeting between us was dangerous; that the feeling,
on our side at least, was too warm for calm remonstrances. And I should
not have taken with me a younger brother, about sixteen years old, with
all the hot-headedness of youth. Fortunately we did not go armed.

We sought Dickson in the evening, at the Continental Hotel--the old,
adobe Continental with its wide porches and its lawn trees--and we found
him in the lobby. I asked him to step out on the porch, where I might
speak with him in private. He came without a moment's hesitation. He was
a big, handsome, black-bearded man in the prime of his strength.

We had scarcely exchanged more than a few sentences formally, when my
brother drew back and struck him a smashing blow in the face. Dickson
grappled with me, a little blinded, and I called to the boy to
run--which he very wisely did. Dickson and I were at once surrounded,
and I was arrested.

Ordinarily the incident would have been trivial enough, but in the
alarmed state of the public mind it was magnified into an attempt on the
part of George Q. Cannon's sons to take the life of the United States
District Attorney. Indictments were found against my brother and myself,
and against a cousin who happened to be in another part of the hotel at
the time of the attack. Some weeks later, when the excitement had rather
died down, I went to the District Attorney's office and arranged with
his assistant, Mr. Varian, that the indictments against my brother (who
had escaped from Utah) and my cousin (who was wholly innocent) should
be quashed, and that I should plead guilty to a charge of assault and
battery. On this understanding, I appeared in court before Chief Justice
Zane.

But Mr. Varian, having consulted with Mr. Dickson, had learned that I
had not struck the blow--though, as the elder brother, I was morally
responsible for it--and he suggested to the court that sentence be
suspended. This, Justice Zane seemed prepared to do, but I objected. I
was a newspaper writer (as I explained), and I felt that if I criticized
the court thereafter for what I believed to be a harshness