He bore down and perceived it to be the sloop whose discovery he desired. The twelve men boarded with a rush, but found themselves in possession of an empty deck. The fumes of alcohol and the sound of snoring guided the boarding-party to the object of their search and the scene of their easy victory. Durkee transferred the muskets and prisoners to his own craft; and returned to the California Street wharf shortly after daylight. A messenger was dispatched to headquarters. He returned with instructions to deliver the muskets but to turn loose the prisoners. Durkee was somewhat astonished at the latter order but complied.
"All right," he is reported to have said. "Now, you measly hounds, you've got just about twenty-eight seconds to make yourselves as scarce as your virtues."
Maloney and his crew wasted few of the twenty-eight seconds in starting, but once out of sight they regained much of their bravado. A few drinks restored them to normal, and enabled them to put a good face on the report they now made to their employers. Maloney and his friends then visited in turn all the saloons. The drunker they grew, the louder they talked, reviling the Committee collectively and singly, bragging that they would shoot at sight Coleman, Truett, Durkee, and several others whom they named. They flourished weapons publicly, and otherwise became obstreperous. The Committee decided that their influence was bad and instructed Sterling Hopkins, with four others, to arrest the lot and bring them in.
The news of this determination reached the offending parties. They immediately fled to their masters like cur dogs. Their masters, who included Terry, Bowie, and a few others, happened to be discussing the situation in the office of Richard Ashe, a Texan. The crew burst into this gathering very much scared, with a statement that a "thousand stranglers" were at their heels. Hopkins, having left his small posse at the foot of the stairs, knocked and entered the room. He was faced by the muzzles of half a dozen pistols and told to get out of there. Hopkins promptly obeyed.
If Terry had possessed the slightest degree of leadership he would have seen that this was the worst of all moments to precipitate a crisis. The forces of his own party were neither armed nor ready. But here, as in all other important crises of his career, he was governed by the haughty and headstrong passion of the moment.
Hopkins left his men on guard at the foot of the stairs, borrowed a horse from a passer-by, and galloped to headquarters. There he was instructed to return and stay on watch, and was told that reinforcements would soon follow. He arrived before the building in which Ashe's office was located in time to see Maloney, Terry, Ashe, McNabb, Bowie, and Rowe, all armed with shot-guns, just turning a far corner. He dismounted and called on his men, who followed. The little posse dogged the judge's party for some distance. For a little time no attention was paid to them, but as they pressed closer, Terry, Ashe, and Maloney turned and presented their shot-guns. This was probably intended only as a threat, but Hopkins, who was always overbold, lunged at Maloney. Terry thrust his gun at a Vigilante who seized it by the barrel. At the same instant Ashe pressed the muzzle of his weapon against the breast of a man named Bovee, but hesitated to pull the trigger. It was not at that time as safe to shoot men in the open street as it had been formerly. Barry covered Rowe with a pistol. Rowe dropped his gun and ran towards the armory. The accidental discharge of a pistol seemed to unnerve Terry. He whipped out a long knife and plunged it into Hopkins's neck. Hopkins relaxed his hold on Terry's shot-gun and staggered back.
"I am stabbed! Take them, Vigilantes!" he said.
He dropped to the sidewalk. Terry and his friends ran towards the armory. Of the Vigilante posse only Bovee and Barry remained, but these two pursued the fleeing Law and Order men to the very doors of the armory itself. When the portals were slammed in their faces they took up their stand outside; and alone these two men held imprisoned several hundred men! During the next few minutes several men attempted entrance to the armory, among them our old friend Volney Howard. All were turned back and were given the impression that the armory was already in charge of the Vigilantes. After a little, however, doubtless to the great relief of the "outside garrison" of the armory, the great Vigilante bell began to boom out its signals: one, two, three—rest; one, two, three—rest; and so on.
Instantly the streets were alive with men. Merchants left their customers, clerks their books, mechanics their tools. Draymen stripped their horses of harness, abandoned their wagons, and rode away to join their cavalry. Within an incredibly brief space of time everybody was off for the armory, the military companies marching like veterans, the artillery rumbling over the pavement. The cavalry, jogging along at a slow trot, covered the rear. A huge and roaring mob accompanied them, followed them, raced up the side-streets to arrive at the armory at the same time as the first files of the military force. They found the square before the building entirely deserted except for the dauntless Barry and Bovee, who still marched up and down singlehanded, holding the garrison within. They were able to report that no one had either entered or left the armory.
Inside the building the spirit had become one of stubborn sullenness. Terry was very sorry—as, indeed, he well might be—a Judge of the Supreme Court, who had no business being in San Francisco at all. Sworn to uphold the law, and ostensibly on the side of the Law and Order party, he had stepped out from his jurisdiction to commit as lawless and as idiotic a deed of passion and prejudice as could well have been imagined. Whatever chances the Law and Order party might have had heretofore were thereby dissipated. Their troops were scattered in small units; their rank and file had disappeared no one knew where; their enemies were fully organized and had been mustered by the alarm bell to their usual alertness and capability; and Terry's was the hand that had struck the bell!