Young Smith fell groaning to the ground, where his brother who was standing near with his left hand filled with the blood of a chicken, ran to him, crying: “Oh! my poor brother, my poor brother!” at the same time smearing his brother’s breast with the blood he held in his hand.
O’Riley was brought to the spot by his seconds, and while they were asking the seconds of the opposite side if their man had received satisfaction, the brother of the man lying on the ground suddenly drew his six-shooter, and shouting: “You have killed my brother, now I’ll have your life!” made at O’Riley, who ran like a deer for the house of a neighbor, where he knew a loaded shotgun was kept.
As he ran, the brother of the man supposed to be killed, occasionally fired his pistol, causing O’Riley to do some lively zigzaging, after the manner practiced by the Piute Indians under similar circumstances.
The farce of the duel having been carefully[carefully] studied in all of its details, long before going upon the ground, and knowing that at this stage of its progress O’Riley would go for this shotgun, the boys had rammed tremendous charges into both barrels of the ponderous old family weapon, putting a number of paper wads down upon the powder.
Leaping into the house and getting possession of the gun, O’Riley rushed out and was about to make his way across Gold Cañon, when his pursuer, now dangerously near, blazed away at him again with his revolver.
O’Riley, standing on the brink of the cañon, wheeled about and let drive at his relentless pursuer. He had cocked both barrels of the gun and both went off together, the breech striking him full on the nose and mouth, sending him rolling fifteen or twenty feet to the bottom of the cañon. He landed in active retreat, however, and went up through the cañon like an antelope.
O’Riley made directly for the village of Franktown, distant twelve miles, over the mountain, and remained there some two weeks, though the Johntowners several times sent word to him to come back and work his claim—that he had not killed Smith, that all was right and the duel was only a sham affair.
But not a word of all this would O’Riley believe. He had seen his rival stretched upon the ground in his gore, had heard his dying groans, and was not to be fooled back to Johntown to be shot by the incensed Smiths or hanged by the miners of the camp.
Taking with them young Smith, the man supposed to have been killed in the duel, a party of Johntowners went over to Franktown to see O’Riley. No sooner did the latter see that Smith was really alive than he flew into a terrible rage and it was all that the friends on both sides could do to prevent shooting that was not sham and bloodshed in earnest. Peace was finally made by young Smith agreeing to renounce all pretensions to the hand of the young lady.