It was about this time, too, that I first saw the teeth and the claws of our metaphorical man-eater. That was during the conflict between Governor Waite and the Fire and Police Board of Denver. He had the appointment and removal of the members of this Board, under the law, and when they refused to close the public gambling houses and otherwise enforce the laws against vice in Denver, he read them out of office. They refused to go, and defied him, with the police at their backs. He threatened to call out the militia and drive them from the City Hall. The whole town was in an uproar. One night, in the previous summer, I had followed the excited crowds to Coliseum Hall to hear the Governor speak, and I had seen him rise like some old Hebrew prophet, with his long white beard and patriarchal head of hair, and denounce iniquity and political injustice and the oppressions of the predatory rich. He appealed to the Bible in a calm prediction that, if the reign of lawlessness did not cease, in time to come "blood would flow in the land even unto the horses' bridles." (And he earned for himself, thereby, the nickname of "Bloody Bridles" Waite.) Now it began to appear that his prediction was about to come true; for he called out the militia, and the Board armed the police. My brother was a militiaman, and I kept pace with him as his regiment marched from the Armouries to attack the City Hall. There were riflemen on the towers and in the windows of that building; and on the roofs of the houses for blocks around were sharpshooters and armed gamblers and the defiant agents of the powers who were behind the Police Board in their fight. Gatling guns were rushed through the streets; cannon were trained on the City Hall; the long lines of militia were drawn up before the building; and amid the excited tumult of the mob and the eleventh-hour conferences of the Committee of Public Safety, and the hurry of mounted officers and the marching of troops, we all waited with our hearts in our mouths for the report of the first shot. Suddenly, in the silence that expected the storm, we heard the sound of bugles from the direction of the railroad station, and at the head of another army--a body of Federal soldiers ordered from Fort Logan by President Cleveland, at the frantic call of the Committee of Public Safety--a mounted officer rode between the lines of militia and police, and in the name of the President commanded peace. The militia withdrew. The crowds dispersed. The police and their partisans put up their guns, and the Beast, still defiant, went back sullenly to cover. Not until the Supreme Court had decided that Governor Waite had the right and the power to unseat the Board--not till then was the City Hall surrendered; and even so, at the next election (the Beast turning polecat), "Bloody Bridles" Waite was defeated after a campaign of lies, ridicule, and abuse, and the men whom he had opposed were returned to office.