Not because I was possessed of greater fear, or less courage, than any of the party, but because I felt that I had more to live for, I was the first to reach the open air. The “Judge” was following close at my heels, but in his blind haste he tripped in the doorway and blocked the passage. It was at this critical moment that the leap-frog performance commenced. [Illustration: NEEDED AIR.] The antics of Chirini’s circus troupe, during their most brilliant achievements, dwindled into mere schoolboy exercise when compared with the gymnastic efforts of the excited miners. Out came my friend Colyer over the prostrate form of the Judge, and the one-eyed Swede over Colyer, his hair erect and his one dilated eye standing in bold relief from his dark face, like the ornamental stud on a horse’s blinker. Last though not least interested or frightened, came Theodore Arthur Willoughby Spooner, sailing like a flying squirrel over the one-eyed Swede. In the meantime the pistol was jumping about in the fire like a fish in a scoop-net, showering bullets in every direction. The clock hung silent upon the wall, having received a charge of buckshot full in the face, and the dog lay dead upon the hearthstone. “Chickens come home to roost,” saith the old proverb, and indeed it would seem so, for poor Judge Twitchell, whose rashness brought about the whole calamity, received a parting salute, a farewell shot, just as he had gathered himself on all fours to make a final lunge from the fusillade within. Fortunately the wound was not a fatal one, though severe enough to keep his memory green for weeks. Some time elapsed before any person would venture back into the cabin after the firing ceased. No one had kept count of the shots or knew at what moment the battery might open again. We probably would have remained out all night rather than take any chances, but the coals which had been thrown over the cabin, started a brisk fire in half a dozen different places, and we were obliged to run some risks to extinguish the flames and save the place. [Illustration] THE PRIZE I DIDN’T WIN. Who hath contended for a prize? Who hath stood in front of an armed host with a noble emulation warming his breast? Who, with one eye glancing along the barrel to the target in the distance, and the other closed upon the world, hath pressed carefully upon the decisive trigger? And who hath seen the glittering bone of contention passing away into other hands than his at the close of the contest? If such a person there be, then can he sympathize with me in this, my dark hour of despondency. [Illustration: THE BEST SHOT.]