At one o'clock that morning the Editor of the _Messenger_ fired at the Editor of the _Banner_ and missed him. At half-past one two men were wounded by pistol shots in a difficulty at Briggs' warehouse--cause not stated. At nine o'clock half a dozen men lounged down the main street and ascended the upper loft of Briggs' warehouse. In ten or fifteen minutes a dozen more from different saloons in the town lounged as indifferently in the direction of Briggs', until at half-past nine the assemblage in the loft numbered fifty men. During this interval a smaller party had gathered, apparently as accidentally and indefinitely as to purpose, on the steps of the little two-story brick Court House in which the prisoner was confined. At ten o'clock a horse was furiously ridden into town, and dropped exhausted at the outskirts. A few moments later a man hurriedly crossed the plaza toward the Court House. It was Mr. Jack Hamlin. But the Three Voices had preceded him, and from the steps of the Court House were already uttering the popular mandate. It was addressed to a single man. A man who, deserted by his _posse_, and abandoned by his friends, had for the last twelve hours sat beside his charge, tireless, watchful, defiant, and resolute--Joe Hall, the Sheriff of Calaveras! He had been waiting for this summons, behind barricaded doors, with pistols in his belt, and no hope in his heart; a man of limited ideas and restricted resources, constant only to one intent--that of dying behind those bars, in defence of that legal trust, which his office and an extra fifty votes at the election only two months before had put into his hands. It had perplexed him for a moment that he heard the voices of some of these voters below him clamouring against him, but above their feebler pipe always rose another mandatory sentence, "We command you to take and safely keep the body of Gabriel Conroy," and being a simple man the recollection of the quaint phraseology strengthened him and cleared his mind. Ah me, I fear he had none of the external marks of a hero; as I remember him he was small, indistinctive, and fidgety, without the repose of strength; a man who at that extreme moment chewed tobacco and spat vigorously on the floor; who tweaked the ends of his scanty beard, paced the floor, and tried the locks of his pistols. Presently he stopped before Gabriel and said almost fiercely-- "You hear that--they are coming!" Gabriel nodded. Two hours before, when the contemplated attack of the Vigilance Committee had been revealed to him, he had written a few lines to Lawyer Maxwell, which he entrusted to the sheriff. He had then relapsed into his usual tranquillity--serious, simple, and when he had occasion to speak, diffident and apologetic. "Are you going to help me?" continued Hall.