“It was in Simpson’s bar as the row got up, an’ that led to the queer thing I was going to tell you of. Alabama Joe and one or two other rowdies were dead on the Britishers in those days, and they spoke their opinions pretty free, though I warned them as there’d be an almighty muss. That partic’lar night Joe was nigh half drunk, an’ he swaggered about the town with his six-shooter, lookin’ out for a quarrel. Then he turned into the bar, where he know’d he’d find some o’ the English as ready for one as he was hisself. Sure enough, there was half a dozen lounging about, an’ Tom Scott standin’ alone before the stove. Joe sat down by the table, and put his revolver and bowie down in front of him.‘Them’s my arguments, Jeff,’ he says to me,‘if any white-livered Britisher dares give me the lie.’ I tried to stop him, sirs; but he weren’t a man as you could easily turn, an’ he began to speak in a way as no chap could stand. Why, even a ‘Greaser’ would flare up if you said as much of Greaserland! There was a commotion at the bar, an’ every man laid his hands on his wepins; but afore they could draw we heard a quiet voice from the stove: ‘Say your prayers, Joe Hawkins; for, by Heaven, you’re a dead man!’ Joe turned round, and looked like grabbin’ at his iron; but it weren’t no manner of use. Tom Scott was standing up, covering him with his derringer; a smile on his white face, but the very devil shining in his eye. ‘It ain’t that the old country has used me over-well,’ he says, ‘but no man shall speak agin’ it afore me, and live.’ For a second or two I could see his finger tighten round the trigger, an’ then he gave a laugh, an’ threw the pistol on the floor. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I can’t shoot a half-drunk man. Take your dirty life, Joe, an’ use it better nor you have done. You’ve been nearer the grave this night than you will be agin until your time comes. You’d best make tracks now, I guess. Nay, never look black at me, man; I’m not afeard at your shootin’-iron. A bully’s nigh always a coward.’ And he swung contemptuously round, and relit his half-smoked pipe from the stove; while Alabama slunk out o’ the bar, with the laughs of the Britishers ringing in his ears. I saw his face as he passed me, and on it I saw murder, sirs--murder, as plain as ever I seed anything in my life.