on the same lines which had so distinguished them at the earlier
diggings, west of the range. In a few weeks Bannack was as bad as
Lewiston or Florence had ever been. In fact, it became so bad that the
Vigilantes began to show their teeth, although they confined their
sentences to banishment. The black sheep and the white began now to be
segregated.

Plummer, shrewd to see the drift of opinion, saw that he must now play
his hand out to the finish, that he could not now reform. He accordingly
laid his plans to kill Jack Crawford, who was chosen as miners' sheriff.
Plummer undertook one expedient after another to draw Crawford into a
quarrel, in which he knew he could kill him; for Plummer's speed with
the pistol had been proved when he killed Jack Cleveland, one of his own
best gun-fighters. Rumor ran that he was the best pistol shot in the
Rockies and as bad a man as the worst. Plummer thought that Crawford
suspected him of belonging to the bandits, and so doomed him. Crawford
was wary, and defeated three separate attempts to waylay and kill him,
besides avoiding several quarrels that were thrust upon him by Plummer
or his men. Dick Phleger, a friend of Crawford, was also marked by
Plummer, who challenged him to fight with pistols, as he frequently had
challenged Crawford. Phleger was a braver man than Crawford, but he
declined the duel. Plummer would have killed them both. He only wanted
the appearance of an "even break," with the later plea of
"self-defence," which has shielded so many bad men from punishment for
murder.

Plummer now tried treachery, and told Crawford they would be friends.
All the time he was hunting a chance to kill him. At length he held
Crawford up in a restaurant, and stood waiting for him with a rifle. A
friend handed Crawford a rifle, and the latter slipped up and took a
shot from the corner of the house at Plummer, who was across the street.
The ball struck Plummer's right arm and tore it to pieces. Crawford
missed him with a second shot, and Plummer walked back to his own
cabin. Here he had a long siege with his wound, refusing to allow his
arm to be amputated, since he knew he might as well be dead as so
crippled. He finally recovered, although the ball was never removed and
the bone never knit. The ball lodged in his wrist and was found there
after his death, worn smooth as silver by the action of the bones.
Crawford escaped down the Missouri river, to which he fled at Fort
Benton. He ne