Professional gamblers everywhere, in a new country, form a community by themselves. They have few intimates outside of their own number. A sort of tacit understanding among them links them together by certain implied rules and regulations, which they readily obey. Of the same nature, we may suppose, was the bond which united Plummer and his associates in their infernal designs of plunder and butchery. The honor which thieves accord each other, the prospect of unlimited reward for their vicious deeds, and the certainty of condign punishment for any act of treachery, secured the band and its purposes against any betrayal by its members. Nowhere are the conventionalities of social life sooner abandoned than in a mining camp. To call a man by his proper name there generally implies that he is either a stranger or one with whom you do not care to make acquaintance. The gamblers were generally known by diminutive surnames or appellations significant of their characters. I shall so designate those of them who were thus known, in this narrative. Prominent among the associates of Plummer at Lewiston were Jack Cleveland, Cherokee Bob, and Bill Bunton. Cleveland was an old California acquaintance, familiar with Plummer’s early history. He used this fatal knowledge, as it afterwards proved, in a dictatorial and offensive manner, often presuming upon it to arrogate a position in the band which by common consent was assigned to Plummer. Cherokee Bob was a native Georgian, and received his name from the fact that he was a quarter-blood Indian. He was bitter in his hatred of the loyal cause and all engaged in it. Before he came to Lewiston he had, in an affray of his own plotting, killed two or three soldiers in the Walla Walla theatre. He fled to Lewiston to escape the vengeance of their comrades. Bill Bunton was a double-dyed murderer and notorious horse and cattle thief. He had killed a man at a ball near Walla Walla, was tried for murder, and acquitted on insufficient evidence. He afterwards killed his brother-in-law, and in cold blood soon after shot down an Indian, and escaped the clutches of the law by flight. Possessing himself of a ranche on Pataha Creek, he lived there with his Indian wife, under the pretext of farming. It was soon ascertained, however, that his business was secreting and selling stolen stock. The officers made a dash upon his ranche, but the bird had again flown. Soon afterward, disguised in the blanket and paint of an Indian, he entered Lewiston, and lounged about the streets for several days without exciting suspicion. During this time he became a member of Plummer’s murderous band.