y the name of Helms, also
from Missouri. Their names were Jim, Davenport, Wade, Chet and Daunt.
These men, with Mr. Holman, owned the bed of the stream, and their
ground proved to be quite wet and disagreeable to work. Mr. Holman could
not well stand to work in the cold water, so he asked the privilege of
putting in a hired man in his place, which was agreed to. He then took
up a claim for himself outside of the other claims, and this proved to
be on higher bed rock and dry, and paid even better than the low claims
where the Helms brothers were at work. This was not what the Helms boys
considered exactly fair, as Holman seemed to be getting rich the
fastest, and as there was no law to govern them they held a free country
court of their own, and decided the case to suit themselves; so they
ordered Holman to come back and do his own work. No fault was found with
the hired man but what he did his work well enough, but they were
jealous and would not be bound by their agreement.

But this decision did not satisfy all parties, and it was agreed to
submit the case to three men, and I was chosen one of them. We held
Court on the ground and heard both sides of the story, after which we
retired to the shade of a bunch of willows to hold council over the
matter with the result that we soon came to a decision in favor of Mr.
Holman. About this time one of the Helms boys began to quarrel with
Holman and grew terribly mad, swearing all kinds of vengeance, and
making the canon ring with the loudest kind of Missouri oaths. Finally
he picked up a rock to kill Holman, but the latter was quick with his
pistol, a single shot duelling piece, and as they were not more than ten
feet apart Helms would have had a hole in him large enough for daylight
to shine through if the pistol had not missed fire. We stopped the
quarrel and made known our decision, whereupon Helms went off muttering
vengeance.

We now went back to our work again at our claims, mine being between
Helms' cabin and the saloon. Holman stopped to talk a little while on my
claim, while I was down below at work, and soon Helms came back again in
a terrible rage, stopping on the opposite side of the hole from Holman,
swearing long and loud, and flourishing a big pistol with which he
threatened to blow Holman into purgatory. He was so much enraged that he
fairly frothed at the mouth like a rabid dog. The men were about twenty
feet apart, and I at the bottom of the hole ten feet be