I hope no one will imagine I am bragging. I took not the slightest chance in sending the challenge and knew it very well. No man was compelled to accept a challenge without a full knowledge of the nature of his offense. If a person wanted to fight you just for his own amusement or because he disapproved of the cut of your coat, no one was expected to humor him, and a man of honor could properly refuse to consider a challenge based on trivial grounds or even kick the bearer out of doors. As soon as my second presented himself to Judson, just as I expected, he asked to be informed in what way he had given offense to Mr. Harpending. My second explained the deadly nature of the one-sided invitation to drink, according to the usages of Southwestern Kentucky, whereat the quartermaster laughed and said he was ignorant of any such custom; that he had never had the remotest intention of being discourteous and asked that this explanation be given me before going further. Of course, I had to appear immensely gratified. I wrote Judson, expressing my entire satisfaction, apologized for my own hasty conclusion, and asked him to dinner. We had a jolly sort of time and over black coffee we discussed the proposed Rubery-Tompkins duel. Both agreed it was a shame to see two fine young fellows fill each other with lead and decided to co-operate to prevent it. We managed to bring the principals together and after a lot of diplomacy on all sides Tompkins agreed to a written retraction of the insulting language, Rubery promising that it should never be exhibited unless he were charged with cowardice as a result of the billiard-hall incident. Everything terminated in a dinner party and the incident was closed. Rubery and I, thus strangely brought together, became inseparable. We were nearly of an age, both crazy for adventure, both devoted to the South. It was not, therefore, strange that I confided to him all my plans of outfitting a privateer. When he learned the details he became almost idiotic with delight. “Now, we’re getting somewhere,” he cried. “Let me be your associate and count me in to the limit.” That is how the nephew of John Bright became associated with Greathouse and myself in an effort to destroy the commerce of the Pacific Coast and how he came to loom largely in what was known to history as the “Chapman piracy case.” CHAPTER IX. PLAN TO CAPTURE GOLD SHIPS DEVELOPS, BUT TROUBLE FOLLOWS ENGAGEMENT OF VILLAINOUS-LOOKING PILOT. The three of us--Greathouse, Rubery and myself--now worked in unison. My first intention was to outfit in British Columbia, but an agent stationed at Vancouver was unable to find anything fit for our purpose. We negotiated for the purchase of the steamer Otter, owned in Oregon, but on a trial trip she failed to develop a speed much greater than that of a rowboat--not enough either to fight or run away.