since turned his hand to various professions,
practising medicine, superintending extensive
mining operations, preaching regularly on
Sunday, and at the same time keeping a table
d'hôte for the benefit of the residents in Gila
City. The trial took place in a large tent
generally used for the last-mentioned purpose, and
all the proceedings were marked by a considerable
amount of formality. Two young Californians,
ambitious of forensic distinction, undertook
to conduct the prosecution, and the
prisoner was defended by three of the most loquacious
members of the community, who were
supposed to have volunteered for the office in
order to have an opportunity of expending their
eloquence with some probability of finding
listeners. The audience was of a floating
character, the tent being hardly sufficiently large
to contain all the miners of the Gila, and the
attractions of the neighbouring bar and
monte-table being too powerful to permit a
well-sustained attention to the pleadings of the rival
orators. Within the hastily improvised courthouse
a few dim and flickering lanterns cast a
gloomy and uncertain light on scores of bearded
faces, wearing that expression of profound
gravity which so generally marks the American
of the Far West, and so soon acquired by all who
have thrown themselves into the midst of that
desperate fight for which is ceaselessly carried
on in the suburbs of civilisation. Men were
there who had obeyed the stern behests of the
Vigilance Committee of San Francisco, and
assisted at the terrible task of the moral purification
of California, while others had good reason
to be thankful that in times past a not too
stringent law had prevailed, and that they had
enjoyed the impunity which, in the West, is
much oftener the consequence of what is there
called "order," than of the rough and ready
justice of the people.

The prosecuting counsel were extremely
vehement in their addresses to the jury, and
showed a considerable amount of skill in their
examination of witnesses. It was urged that
an example ought to be made at once in order
to check that proneness to the use of Colonel
Colt's ingeniously constructed weapons which
had been the bane of a neighbouring State, and
which already threatened to convert the peaceful
valley of the Gila into a mere shooting-gallery.
Even admitting the rights of the prisoner,
according to the frontier code of honour, to make
a target of the man who had knocked him down,
it was contended that he had shown a degree of
recklessness in not waiting for a more favourable
opportunity which deprived his conduct of the
shadow of an excuse. In order to represent
his character in the blackest light, the fact was
brought forward that he had served an
apprenticeship in homicide during the civil wars of
Kansas, but the judge promptly checked those
revelations on account of their tendency to
influence in an improper manner the decision of
the jury, the twelve enlightened citizens being
chiefly Southerners, and one or two of them
having taken part in the capture of Lawrence,
while the accused was known to be a son of the
"old Hoosier State" of Indiana. Every one
felt immensely relieved when the eternal "nigger
question" which for a moment had threatened
to intrude itself upon the meeting was
smothered by the good sense of the venerable judge.

The defence was magnificent. It must be
confessed, indeed, that the leading counsel did
not stick very closely to his brief, but his speech
thrilled the hearts of the majority of the
audience, and he had got himself up for the occasion
by changing his personal appearance in a
manner that was very impressive. His bushy
black beard had been ruthlessly swept away,
leaving a smooth blueness of visage which was
supposed to indicate that the opposite side
would find it utterly impossible to catch hold of
him. The red shirt of the miner which he
usually wore was replaced by a black coat of
distinctly legal appearance dragged from the
recesses of his kit, and it was evidently intended
that this garment should produce a solemnising
effect on the minds of the jury, and convince
them at once that they had no ordinary man to
deal with.

The exordium of his address was a swelling
flood of stump eloquence which possessed the
advantage of not having the slightest
connexion with the matter in hand, while it gently
soothed the ears and feelings of the crowd,
which had been rather ruffled by the severe
animadversion of the prosecutors upon a few of
the most cherished practices of the great
American people. He artfully accounted for the
conduct of his client by tracing it to those
chivalrous instincts of the race which cause a blow
to be regarded as an insult only to be wiped
in blood. He digressed boldly into the history
of the Union, and alluded in a touching manner
to that Bird of Freedom which is said to be in
the habit of sitting upon the summit of the
Rocky Mountains, quenching its thirst in the
Atlantic while moistening the feathers of its tail
in the Pacific. The Monroe doctrine, and the
manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxon were also
dragged in, for no earthly reason except that in
America no speech on any subject can be
complete without them. A parallel was drawn
between the vigorous policy of the unfailing General
Jackson and the decisive measures adopted by
the prisoner to vindicate his wounded honour.
Having thus shown his hearers that he himself
was a fit person to be sent as delegate to
Congress whenever the Territory of Arizona should
be called on to elect such a representative, the
orator at length condescended to discuss the
arguments advanced by the counsel for the
prosecution in favour of making an example of his
much-injured client. He contended that the
act of firing a revolver at the breast of an
enemy was not only excusable but highly
meritorious, and that as the bullet had failed to
strike the object aimed at, it was absurd either
to talk of injuries received or of punishment to
be inflicted. Admitting that a young man had
been wounded, he did not think that an
unprejudiced jury would see anything in that