the
last against overwhelming odds, as did also all of the Walker men. The
son was killed at the father's side. The father received a bullet
through the eye. The old man--for he was an old man at the time--wore
spectacles, and the bullet and one of the glasses went into his skull
and remained there. There were some other sons: Steve, George, and Jim,
very young chaps--the merest lads--who wanted to be in the Walker
expedition, for they had their father's dauntless spirit. But Walker
wouldn't have them; he said it was a serious expedition, and no place
for children.

The Major was a majestic creature, with a most stately and dignified and
impressive military bearing, and he was by nature and training
courteous, polite, graceful, winning; and he had that quality which I
think I have encountered in only one other man--Bob Howland--a
mysterious quality which resides in the eye; and when that eye is turned
upon an individual or a squad, in warning, that is enough. The man that
has that eye doesn't need to go armed; he can move upon an armed
desperado and quell him and take him prisoner without saying a single
word. I saw Bob Howland do that, once--a slender, good-natured, amiable,
gentle, kindly little skeleton of a man, with a sweet blue eye that
would win your heart when it smiled upon you, or turn cold and freeze
it, according to the nature of the occasion.

The Major stood Joe up straight; stood Steve Gillis up fifteen paces
away; made Joe turn right side towards Steve, cock his navy
six-shooter--that prodigious weapon--and hold it straight down against
his leg; told him that _that_ was the correct position for the gun--that
the position ordinarily in use at Virginia City (that is to say, the gun
straight up in the air, then brought slowly down to your man) was all
wrong. At the word "_One_," you must raise the gun slowly and steadily
to the place on the other man's body that you desire to convince. Then,
after a pause, "_two, three--fire--Stop!_" At the word "stop," you may
fire--but not earlier. You may give yourself as much time as you please
_after_ that word. Then, when you fire, you may advance and go on firing
at your leisure and pleasure, if you can get any pleasure out of it.
And, in the meantime, the other man, if he has been properly instructed
and is alive to his privileges, is advancing on _you_, and firing--and
it is always likely that more or less trouble will result.

Naturally, when Joe's revolver ha