During the same evening two miners, named Mullhearn and McGinly, arrived at the hotel from the neighborhood of Mauch Chunk, both in a state of semi-intoxication and ready for any sort of adventure that might come within reach. The large bar-room gradually filled with people. Finally the two strangers, concluding a deal of loud talk plentifully interspersed with oaths, managed to get up a wrestling match in the apartment, a ring being cleared for the purpose. Then all was noise and confusion. Some, not particularly interested in manly sports, were engaged in drowning sorrow, from lack of work, in deep potations at the bar. Others sat, nodding stupidly in their chairs. After a protracted struggle, in which several heavy falls were given and received on either side, Mullhearn was fairly thrown, his antagonist coming down upon him with great force, and McGinly declared the victor. The result of this decision was the formation of two parties in the assemblage, a McGinly party and a Mullhearn party; this culminated, as might have been expected, in the usual Kilkenny fight, in which all participated, battering skulls, blacking eyes, breaking noses, and spoiling countenances generally. During the prevalence of this hurly-burly, one Dougherty, who commanded a crowd of roughs like himself, and who was affected more than those about him by the liquor he had drank, pulled out a pistol and commenced discharging it into the walls, ceilings, floors, counters, or whatever eligible objects he chanced to see. Fortunately, the supply of cartridges was quickly exhausted and nobody hurt except the ruffian himself. One of the missiles from his weapon, rebounding from the hard wood of the counter, came back with force, striking Dougherty in the left hip, inflicting a painful but not deadly wound. The shooting had been in sport, and, the practical joker, having received merited reward for his ghastly jest, the disturbance was quieted, and while his injury was examined almost silence reigned. McKenna, saying he had some experience in the surgical line volunteered to dress Dougherty’s hurt. His navy service was again alluded to, and, as there was no doctor nigh, the duty finally devolved upon him of staunching the blood and binding up the injury. A little whisky and water, properly applied, soon performed the first, and a keen pen-knife quickly laid bare the bullet, which had not penetrated deeply, and it was deftly extracted by the fingers. Then more whisky and water cleansed the hurt, while a plaster was procured from a neighboring drug-store, applied, and, the patient, feeling quite easy, before the borough police had discovered who had done the shooting, Dougherty resumed his carousal with his associates. [Illustration: “_McKenna saying he had some experience in the surgical line, volunteered to dress Dougherty’s hurt._”]