The battle in the street was now at its height, and the spirit in which it was waged on the part of the citizens showed how grossly the robbers had mistaken the mettle of the people with whom they had to deal. The community was taken by surprise and at a great disadvantage. It was at the height of the prairie-chicken season, and a majority of the men who had guns were away in the field. The excellent hunting in the neighborhood had drawn many sportsmen from the larger cities, accustoming the people to the presence of strangers, while they had no reason to expect a hostile invasion. When the mounted bandits on Bridge Square and Division Street began riding and shooting, the first impression was that of surprise. Some thought it the reckless fun of drunken scapegraces. Some took the riders to be the attaches of a traveling show, advertising their performance. When the bullets began to fly about people’s ears, and the character of the invaders became evident, every body was stunned and dazed, and there was a general scramble for shelter. But the next moment there was an equally prompt rally of brave men to repel the attack. Dr. Wheeler, who had been one of the first to give the alarm, and who had been driven from the street by the imprecations and bullets of the robbers, hastened to the drug-store where he usually kept his gun. Remembering as he went that he had left it at the house, he did not slacken his pace, but kept on through the store, heading first for the house of a neighbor, where he hoped a weapon might be found, but on second thought turning into the Dampier Hotel, close at hand, where he remembered to have seen one. There, instead of the fowling-piece he looked for, he found an old army carbine, for which, with the help of Mr. Dampier the clerk, three cartridges were discovered in another part of the house. All this was so quickly done, that he was at a second-story chamber window, with his gun loaded, in time for the beginning of the fight. [HENRY M. WHEELER.] HENRY M. WHEELER. Meantime Mr. Allen, who had also sounded so prompt and vigorous an alarm, ran to his store where he had a number of guns, and loading them with such ammunition as came to his hand, gave them to anybody who would take them. One of them was taken by Mr. Elias Stacy, who used it to good purpose in the battle that followed.