Stapleton accomplished his trip without molestation. Lyons and Forbes rode on to Virginia City, also, and finding Dillingham there, they, in company with Stinson, met the next day and arranged for his assassination. A miners’ court for the trial of a civil case was in session the following morning near the bank of the creek fronting the town. To the observation of a person unaccustomed to the makeshifts and customs of a mining community, the picture presented by this court of justice would have exhibited many amusing features--not the least of which was the place wherein it was held. The Temple of Justice was a wakiup of brush and twigs, gathered from the different coppices of willow and alder growing upon the banks of the creek, thrown together in conical form, and of barely sufficient capacity to accommodate the judge, clerk, parties, and jurors. Spectators were indebted to the interstices in this primitive structure for a view of the proceedings; and as no part of the person except the eyes was visible to those within, the appearance of those visual orbs bore no inapt comparison to a constellation in a brush heap. Dr. Steele, president of the gulch, acted as judge. He united with much native good sense, great modesty of demeanor. He was not a lawyer. On his trip from the States, while crossing the plains, an unfriendly gust had swept his only hat beyond recovery, and he came into Montana with his brows bound in a parti-colored cotton handkerchief, which, for want of something more appropriate, not obtainable at the stores, he had worn until some friendly miner possessing an extra hat presented him with it. Proving too small to incase his intellectual organs, the doctor had, by a series of indented slits encircling the rim, increased its elasticity, so that, saving a succession of gaps, through which his hair bristled “like quills upon the fretful porcupine,” it answered the purpose of its creation. With this upon his head he sat upon the bench, an embodiment of the dignity, law, and learning of this little mountain judiciary. In the progress of the trial, the defendant’s counsel asked for a nonsuit, on account of some informality of service. “A what?” inquired the judge with a puzzled expression, as if he had not rightly understood the word. “A nonsuit,” was the rejoinder. “What’s a--” The question partly asked, was left incomplete. The judge blushed, but reflecting that he would probably learn the office of a nonsuit in the course of the argument, he broke through the dilemma by asking, “Upon what ground?”