Now consider this situation, which seemed to me then as it seems to me now, most absurd in every way. Nobody 336 else considered it so. Everybody knew that the rough element was out to “get” Thompson and Cleveland. Everybody, including both Thompson and Cleveland themselves, was pretty certain that they would not be quietly assassinated, the argument in that case being that the deed would be too apt to raise the community. Therefore it was pretty well understood that some sort of a quarrel or personal encounter would be used as an excuse. Personally I could not see that that would make much essential difference; but, as I said, the human mind is a curious piece of mechanism.
Among the occasional visitors to the camp was a man who called himself Harry Crawford. He was a man of perhaps twenty-five years, tall, rather slender, with a clear face and laughing blue eyes. Nothing in his appearance indicated the desperado; and yet we had long known him as one of the Morton gang. This man now took up his residence in camp; and we soon discovered that he was evidently the killer. The first afternoon he picked some sort of a petty quarrel with Thompson over a purchase, but cooled down instantly when unexpectedly confronted by a half dozen miners who came in at the opportune moment. A few days afterward in the slack time of the afternoon Thompson, while drinking at the bar of the Empire and conversing with a friend, was approached by a well-known sodden hanger-on of the saloons.
“What ’n hell you fellows talking about?” demanded this man impudently.
“None of your business,” replied Thompson impatiently, for the man was a public nuisance, and besides was deep in Thompson’s debt.
337The man broke into foul oaths.
“I’ll dare you to fight!” he cried in a furious passion.
Facing about, Thompson saw Crawford standing attentively among the listeners, and instantly comprehended the situation.
“You have the odds of me with a pistol,” said Thompson, who notoriously had no skill with that weapon. “Why should I fight you?”
“Well, then,” cried the man, “put up your fists; that’ll show who is the best man!”
He snatched off his belt and laid it on the bar. Thompson did the same.