Don Carlo picked up a pamphlet that lay upon the table and turned over the leaves, it was the confession of _Alonzo Phelps_. He said mentally, Phelps was a very bad, but a very brave man. He defied the city of Vicksburg, defied the law, and the State of Mississippi. He thought of the generations before him, and family pride filled his veins with warm blood. Don Carlo was ready to face Brindle Bill, or the Brindle Devil, in defence of his rights, and he started for _headquarters_. Cool, calculating woman--Simon's wife, the patient watcher for her absent husband, saw Don Carlo wending his way through the stillness of the night, to _headquarters_. Her keen, woman's wit, told her there was trouble ahead. Silently, and unseen, with fire brand in hand, (this was before friction matches were thought of,) she left the Simon cabin. When Don Carlo arrived at _headquarters_, the door and window was fastened on the inside, a faint light from a tallow candle, that glimmered through the cracks of the cabin, whispered the deep laid scheme of the inmates--S. S. Simon, Sundown Hill and Brindle Bill were banded together to swindle Dan Carlo. Don Carlo went there to enter that cabin. Quick as thought he clambered up the corner of the jutting logs, and passed down the chimney. In front of him, around a square table, sat four men. On the center of the table a large pile of shining silver dollars, enlivened the light of the tallow candle. The players looked up in amazement; had an angel from heaven dropped among them, they would not have been more astonished. While the men sat, between doubt and fear, Don Carlo raked the money from the table, and put it in his pocket. Brindle Bill was the first to rise from the table, he held up four cards, claimed the money, said he was personally insulted by Don Carlo, and by G--d he should fight it out. He chose S. S. Simon for his second, and boastingly prepared for the contest. Don Carlo used no words, nor did he choose any second; Sundown Hill and Dan Carlo looked at each other, and at S. S. Simon, with a look that said, we stand by Don Carlo.