“I’ve looked to see ’em have a man for breakfast any morning,” said old Godfrey when I got back to the ranch and told him of it. “According to what I hear they’ve bin shooting at the lamps in the saloons and dancing on the bars, slinging their six-shooters round their heads, and raising Cain generally, every night. I’ve wondered there hasn’t been nobody shot yet, but I reckon they were each one of ’em kind of shy of being the first to begin. But now, if they’ve started in, likely they’ll have another Julesburg here if they ain’t interfered with.” Julesburg, as I have already said, was a spot that had been the end of the track on the Union Pacific Railroad for some months during its construction, and it had been, perhaps, the most debauched and the most blood-stained little moral pesthouse the Far West ever saw. A young man presently arrived at Godfrey’s where he also found quarters under that hospitable roof; he called himself a schoolmaster by trade, and his object was to see if by chance such a thing was wanted in this three-weeks’-old town. A town, even the newest, almost always had some families, and that generally meant some boys of school age, with, as the obvious and natural consequence, an opening for a schoolmaster. I can’t say that I was much impressed with my new friend’s scholastic qualifications, but I was out to learn all I could of this strange country, and at his invitation I rode with him down to the ford across the South Platte with a view to seeing what opening there might be in Evans. “Crack” came the sharp sound of a pistol shot as we rode through the icy ford, and we saw men running among the houses, and a couple of horsemen with rifles in their hands galloping after a man who was flying at top speed towards the brush in the Platte bottom. “The toughs from Cheyenne have been trying to run this town ever since it was started,” said my companion, “but they haven’t killed anyone so far. I wonder if that shot means the first man killed.” We rode through the fringe of willow brush and cottonwood trees that skirted the river, and up the bluff. We now got fairly into the town and saw all the population--all the male population, that is--swarming like bees in the middle of the main street. Horses and ox-teams stood here and there untended; the shingling hatchets and carpenter’s tools lay around the half-finished houses, just where they had been thrown down. The stores were open, but they were empty, for buyers and sellers had crowded, like all the rest, to the scene of action. There in the centre of the crowd was a sight to remember. Ten men shoulder to shoulder formed a ring, each man facing outwards, each man holding his cocked revolver, muzzle up, the hand that held it being on a level with his chest; the men’s set mouths and searching eyes, turning restlessly on the crowd around, showed them to be sharply on the watch for signs of an attempted rescue.