no one wanted to make
a beginning, so they humored him, but the next night they laid for him.
I met Frank and Charley durin' the day and they said Les had been run
out of Silverton, and he remarked as he came into the Cliff, 'Boys,
mebbe it's my time to die with my boots on in this very camp, but I'm
game.'

"It was almost 8 o'clock and 'Nigger's' was jammed. There was a big
crowd at the table near the end of the bar. I sat at a table parallel to
it, the big red hot stove making the apex of a triangle about the same
distance as the tables were apart. The deal which old Colonel Crumpy was
making came to an end. I was winner and thumbing my chips, when bang
went a gun at the other table. Say, but did you ever see two hundred and
fifty crazy, desperate men push and crowd out of gun play range? Well,
there was lots of tenderfeet in that gang. They jumped onto the
'mustang' table and then to the hazard table and into the crowd,
pell-mell, out of windows. One feller was so scar't he never stopped to
open it, but went kersmash through glass and all. Durin' this I backed
away keerful like to the wall between two windows. I knew if any of 'em
started to run it would be in the middle of the room and I didn't feel
like risking my back to that crowd. My gun hung handy in case of a free
get-away, or die a doin' it. As I felt the cold green boards rub my
spine I seen the rest of the show. It don't take a man a lifetime to
move when guns are speakin'.

"It seems a kid, with sickly taller-like face and pinched cheeks, a
young feller from the States lookin' for a gold mine, who got broke and
nothing to do but clean spit-kits in 'Nigger's' and tend bar, had been
exercised a little with the cards, dealing faro, and they put him on
watch with a big Colt's old-fashioned navy on his lap, all cocked and
ready for business, with instructions that if Les did any more funny
work to plug him. Les had bet his stack as high as he could pile 'em and
lost, grabbed the extra chips, and to the dealer's 'You--put them chips
back,' Les slid up the back of his chair. He was keepin' cases and had
his back to me, reachin' fer his gun. He had on a pair of blue overalls,
and the hammer of that six-shooter got caught in the corner of his
pocket. I seen him tuggin' to get it out, and the dealer, whose name was
Bert Lillis, had lifted the big cannon, the muzzle half way across the
table, and with both hands pulled the trigger, got scared, dropped the
gun and