ated to pull the trigger. It was not at that time as
safe to shoot men in the open street as it had been formerly. Barry
covered Rowe with a pistol. Rowe dropped his gun and ran towards the
armory. The accidental discharge of a pistol seemed to unnerve Terry. He
whipped out a long knife and plunged it into Hopkins's neck. Hopkins
relaxed his hold on Terry's shot-gun and staggered back.

"I am stabbed! Take them, Vigilantes!" he said.

He dropped to the sidewalk. Terry and his friends ran towards the
armory. Of the Vigilante posse only Bovee and Barry remained, but these
two pursued the fleeing Law and Order men to the very doors of the
armory itself. When the portals were slammed in their faces they took
up their stand outside; and alone these two men held imprisoned several
hundred men! During the next few minutes several men attempted entrance
to the armory, among them our old friend Volney Howard. All were turned
back and were given the impression that the armory was already in
charge, of the Vigilantes. After a little, however, doubtless to the
great relief of the "outside garrison" of the armory, the great
Vigilante bell began to boom out its signals: _one, two, three_--rest;
_one, two, three_--rest; and so on.

Instantly the streets were alive with men. Merchants left their
customers, clerks their books, mechanics their tools. Draymen stripped
their horses of harness, abandoned their wagons, and rode away to join
their cavalry. Within an incredibly brief space of time everybody was
off for the armory, the military companies marching like veterans, the
artillery rumbling over the pavement. The cavalry, jogging along at a
slow trot, covered the rear. A huge and roaring mob accompanied them,
followed them, raced up the side-streets to arrive at the armory at the
same time as the first files of the military force. They found the
square before the building entirely deserted except for the dauntless
Barry and Bovee, who still marched up and down singlehanded, holding the
garrison within. They were able to report that no one had either entered
or left the armory.

Inside the building the spirit had become one of stubborn sullenness.
Terry was very sorry--as, indeed, he well might be--a Judge of the
Supreme Court, who had no business being in San Francisco at all. Sworn
to uphold the law, and ostensibly on the side of the Law and Order
party, he had stepped out from his jurisdiction to commit as lawless and
as idiotic