he
stranger smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with
profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown not to
destroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the man to fight
--abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage, and urged and even
implored him to fight; and in the meantime the smiling stranger placed
himself under our protection in mock distress. But presently he assumed
a serious tone, and said:

"Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must, I suppose. But don't
rush into danger and then say I gave you no warning. I am more than a
match for all of you when I get started. I will give you proofs, and
then if my friend here still insists, I will try to accommodate him."

The table we were sitting at was about five feet long, and unusually
cumbersome and heavy. He asked us to put our hands on the dishes and
hold them in their places a moment--one of them was a large oval dish
with a portly roast on it. Then he sat down, tilted up one end of the
table, set two of the legs on his knees, took the end of the table
between his teeth, took his hands away, and pulled down with his teeth
till the table came up to a level position, dishes and all! He said he
could lift a keg of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common glass
tumbler and bit a semi-circle out of it. Then he opened his bosom and
showed us a net-work of knife and bullet scars; showed us more on his
arms and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough in his body to
make a pig of lead. He was armed to the teeth. He closed with the
remark that he was Mr. ---- of Cariboo--a celebrated name whereat we shook
in our shoes. I would publish the name, but for the suspicion that he
might come and carve me. He finally inquired if Brown still thirsted for
blood. Brown turned the thing over in his mind a moment, and then--asked
him to supper.

With the permission of the reader, I will group together, in the next
chapter, some samples of life in our small mountain village in the old
days of desperadoism. I was there at the time. The reader will observe
peculiarities in our official society; and he will observe also, an
instance of how, in new countries, murders breed murders.

CHAPTER XLIX.

An extract or two from the newspapers of the day will furnish a
photograph that can need no embellishment:

FATAL SHOOTING AFFRAY.--An affray occurred, last evening, in a
billiard saloon on