It was addressed to a single man. A man who, deserted by his posse, and abandoned by his friends, had for the last twelve hours sat beside his charge, tireless, watchful, defiant, and resolute—Joe Hall, the Sheriff of Calaveras! He had been waiting for this summons, behind barricaded doors, with pistols in his belt, and no hope in his heart; a man of limited ideas and restricted resources, constant only to one intent—that of dying behind those bars, in defence of that legal trust, which his office and an extra fifty votes at the election only two months before had put into his hands. It had perplexed him for a moment that he heard the voices of some of these voters below him clamouring against him, but above their feebler pipe always rose another mandatory sentence, "We command you to take and safely keep the body of Gabriel Conroy," and being a simple man the recollection of the quaint phraseology strengthened him and cleared his mind. Ah me, I fear he had none of the external marks of a hero; as I remember him he was small, indistinctive, and fidgety, without the repose of strength; a man who at that extreme moment chewed tobacco and spat vigorously on the floor; who tweaked the ends of his scanty beard, paced the floor, and tried the locks of his pistols. Presently he stopped before Gabriel and said almost fiercely—
"You hear that—they are coming!"
Gabriel nodded. Two hours before, when the contemplated attack of the Vigilance Committee had been revealed to him, he had written a few lines to Lawyer Maxwell, which he entrusted to the sheriff. He had then relapsed into his usual tranquillity—serious, simple, and when he had occasion to speak, diffident and apologetic.
"Are you going to help me?" continued Hall.
"In course," said Gabriel, in quiet surprise, "ef you say so. But don't ye do nowt ez would be gettin' yourself into troubil along o' me. I ain't worth it. Maybe it 'ud be jest as square ef ye handed me over to them chaps out yer—allowin' I was a heep o' troubil to you—and reckonin' you'd about hed your sheer o' the keer o' me, and kinder passin' me round. But ef you do feel obligated to take keer o' me, ez hevin' promised the jedges and jury" (it is almost impossible to convey the gentle deprecatoriness of Gabriel's voice and accent at this juncture), "why," he added, "I'm with ye. I'm thar! You understand me!"
He rose slowly, and with quiet but powerfully significant deliberation placed the chair he had been sitting on back against the wall. The tone and act satisfied the sheriff. The seventy-four gunship, Gabriel Conroy, was clearing the decks for action.
There was an ominous lull in the outcries below, and then the solitary lifting up of a single voice, the Potential Voice of the night before! The sheriff walked to a window in the hall and opened it. The besieger and besieged measured each other with a look. Then came the Homeric chaff:—
"Git out o' that, Joe Hall, and run home to your mother. She's getting oneasy about ye!"
"The h—ll you say!" responded Hall, promptly, "and the old woman in such a hurry she had to borry Al Barker's hat and breeches to come here! Run home, old gal, and don't parse yourself off for a man agin!"
"This ain't no bluff, Joe Hall! Why don't ye call? Yer's fifty men; the returns are agin ye, and two precincts yet to hear from." (This was a double thrust, at Hall's former career as a gambler, and the closeness of his late election vote.)