riends, taking advantage of the lull in the storm,
came into the cabin and entreated me to join the two women who were
living on the hill. At this time it seemed to be the general opinion
that there would be a serious fight, and they said I might be wounded
accidentally if I remained on the Bar. As I had no fear of anything of
the kind, I pleaded hard to be allowed to stop, but when told that my
presence would increase the anxiety of our friends, of course, like a
dutiful wife, I went on to the hill.

We three women, left entirely alone, seated ourselves upon a log
overlooking the strange scene below. The Bar was a sea of heads,
bristling with guns, rifles, and clubs. We could see nothing, but
fancied from the apparent quiet of the crowd that the miners were
taking measures to investigate the sad event of the day. All at once we
were startled by the firing of a gun, and the next moment, the crowd
dispersing, we saw a man led into the log cabin, while another was
carried, apparently lifeless, into a Spanish drinking-saloon, from one
end of which were burst off instantly several boards, evidently to give
air to the wounded person. Of course we were utterly unable to imagine
what had happened, and, to all our perplexity and anxiety, one of the
ladies insisted upon believing that it was her own husband who had been
shot, and as she is a very nervous woman, you can fancy our distress.
It was in vain to tell her--which we did over and over again--that that
worthy individual wore a _blue_ shirt, and the wounded person a _red_
one. She doggedly insisted that her dear M. had been shot, and, having
informed us confidentially, and rather inconsistently, that she should
never see him again, never, never, plumped herself down upon the log in
an attitude of calm and ladylike despair, which would have been
infinitely amusing had not the occasion been so truly a fearful one.
Luckily for our nerves, a benevolent individual, taking pity upon our
loneliness, came and told us what had happened.

It seems that an Englishman, the owner of a house of the vilest
description, a person who is said to have been the primary cause of all
the troubles of the day, attempted to force his way through the line of
armed men which had been formed at each side of the street. The guard
very properly refused to let him pass. In his drunken fury he tried to
wrest a gun from one of them, which, being accidentally discharged in
the struggle, inflicted a severe