Crawford’s friends, and the miners generally, who had regarded this quarrel as a personal difficulty between him and Plummer, rejoiced at his escape. It had terminated injuriously, as they felt, to the party who was most in fault, and they were glad the result was no worse. Few knew or ever suspected that it had any deeper origin than the frequent collisions incident to Crawford’s attendance upon Cleveland, after he was shot, and his action as sheriff at the trial of Moore and Reeves. Had it been understood at this time that the roughs had not only decreed the death of Crawford, but of every other man who participated in that trial, the people would have placed themselves on a war footing, and organized themselves to resist the encroachments of the ruffians, which finally left them no other alternative. So fully did they carry out their avowed purposes, that, within five months after the trial, not more than seven of the twenty-seven men who participated in it as judge, prosecutor, sheriff, witnesses, and jurors, were left alive in the Territory. Eight or nine are known to have been killed by some of the band, and others fled to avoid a like fate. Plummer’s wound was very severe. The ball entered at the elbow. Passing down the arm, it broke each bone in two places. Dr. Glick, the surgeon in attendance upon him, after a careful examination of the wound, was of the opinion that amputation of the member alone could save his life. The ball could not be found, and the arm swelled to thrice its natural size, and the passage made by the ball was filled for its entire length with bony spiculæ. Plummer had in a previous affray lost the ready use of his other hand, and knowing that the loss of this arm would necessarily deprive him of his position of chief among the roughs, and that his life depended upon his skill in drawing his revolver,—as he had numerous enemies, who would endeavor to kill him but for the advantage which this skill gave him,—declared that he might as well die as lose his arm. He peremptorily refused to consent to the operation, but insisted that the ball must be found and removed. Dr. Glick, who was highly accomplished in surgery, explained to him the danger of such an operation, but Plummer said he would rather die in the effort to cure the arm than live without it. With great reluctance, and little faith in his ability to save the arm, the doctor undertook the thankless task, and made preparations to operate accordingly. When the arm was bared, and the doctor was about to commence, Old Tex and Bill Hunter entered the room, the latter armed with a double-barrelled shotgun. “I just thought,” said he to the doctor, “that I’d tell you that if you cut an artery, or Plummer dies from the operation you are going to perform, I’m going to shoot the top of your head off.”