The crowd went wild over this response. The confusion became worse. Upholders of Law and Order thrust forward Judge Campbell in the hope that his age and authority on the bench would command respect. He was unable, however, to utter even two consecutive sentences. "I once thought," he interrupted himself piteously, "that I was the free citizen of a free country. But recent occurrences have convinced me that I am a slave, more a slave than any on a Southern plantation, for they know their masters, but I know not mine!" But his auditors refused to be affected by pathos. "Oh, yes you do," they informed him. "You know your masters as well as anybody. Two of them were hanged the other day!" Though this attempt at home to gain coherence failed, the partisans at Sacramento had better luck. They collected, it was said, five hundred men hailing from all quarters of the globe, but chiefly from the Southeast and Texas. All of them were fire-eaters, reckless, and sure to make trouble. Two pieces of artillery were reported coming down the Sacramento to aid all prisoners, but especially Billy Mulligan. The numbers were not in themselves formidable as opposed to the enrollment of the Vigilance Committee, but it must be remembered that the city was full of scattered warriors and of cowed members of the underworld waiting only leaders and a rallying point. Even were the Vigilantes to win in the long run, the material for a very pretty civil war was ready to hand. Two hundred men were hastily put to filling gunnybags with sand and to fortifying not only headquarters but the streets round about. Cannon were mounted, breastworks were piled, and embrasures were cut. By morning Fort Gunnybags, as headquarters was henceforth called, had come into existence. The fire-eaters arrived that night, but they were not five hundred strong, as excited rumor had it. They disembarked, greeting the horde of friends who had come to meet them, marched in a body to Fort Gunnybags, looked it over, stuck their hands into their pockets, and walked peacefully away to the nearest bar-rooms. This was the wisest move on their part, for by now the disposition of the Vigilante men was so complete that nothing short of regularly organized troops could successfully have dislodged them.