Plummer now tried treachery, and told Crawford they would be friends. All the time he was hunting a chance to kill him. At length he held Crawford up in a restaurant, and stood waiting for him with a rifle. A friend handed Crawford a rifle, and the latter slipped up and took a shot from the corner of the house at Plummer, who was across the street. The ball struck Plummer's right arm and tore it to pieces. Crawford missed him with a second shot, and Plummer walked back to his own cabin. Here he had a long siege with his wound, refusing to allow his arm to be amputated, since he knew he might as well be dead as so crippled. He finally recovered, although the ball was never removed and the bone never knit. The ball lodged in his wrist and was found there after his death, worn smooth as silver by the action of the bones. Crawford escaped down the Missouri river, to which he fled at Fort Benton. He never came back to the country. Plummer went on practising with the six-shooter with his left hand, and became a very good left-hand shot. He knew that his only safety lay in his skill with weapons. Plummer's physician was Dr. Glick, who operated under cover of a shotgun, and with the cheerful assurance that if he killed Plummer by accident, he himself would be killed. After that Glick dressed the wounds of more than one outlaw, but dared not tell of it. Plummer admitted to him at last that these were his men and told Glick he would kill him if he ever breathed a word of this confidence. So the knowledge of the existence of the banditti was known to one man for a long time. As to Bannack, it was one of the wildest camps ever known in any land. Pistol fire was heard incessantly, and one victim after another was added to the list. George Ives, Johnny Cooper, George Carrhart, Hayes Lyons, Cy Skinner, and others of the toughs were now open associates of the leading spirit, Plummer. The condition of lawlessness and terror was such that all the decent men would have gone back to the States, but the same difficulties that had kept them from getting across to Florence now kept them from getting back East. The winter held them prisoners. Henry Plummer was now elected sheriff for the Bannack mining district, to succeed Crawford, whom he had run out of the country. It seems very difficult to understand how this could have occurred; but it will serve to show the numerical strength of Plummer's party. The latter, now married, professed to have reformed. In reality, he was deeper in deviltry than ever in his life.