Cherokee Bob, eager for an opportunity when he could wreak his demoniac wrath upon some of the Federal soldiers, with the aid and complicity of Deputy Sheriff Porter, who like himself was a Secessionist, contrived the following plan as favorable to his purpose; it was agreed between them, that on a certain evening Bob and his friends should attend the theatre, fully armed. Porter, under pretext of quelling disturbances between the acts, should by his insulting language and manner provoke an affray with the soldiers present, in the progress of which he would command Bob and those with him to assist, and thus under the seeming protection of law, save them from the consequences of any acts of vengeance they desired to commit. On the evening appointed, six or seven soldiers were seated side by side in the pit, a single one occupying a seat in the gallery behind them. Porter was near them, and Bob and his associates in a position convenient to him. When the curtain fell upon the first act, the usual noises commenced, the soldiers joining in making them. Porter sprang from his seat, and striding in front of them, vociferated, “Dry up there, you brass-mounted hirelings, or I’ll snatch you bald-headed.” This insulting language produced the desired effect. Smarting under the implied reproach it conveyed, one of the soldiers sharply inquired, “Why do you single us out, when there are others more boisterous?” Porter waited for no further provocation, but drawing and cocking his revolver with one hand, and seizing the soldier nearest to him with the other, he dragged him ignominiously into the circle where he was standing, ordering the deputy city marshal and Bob and his friends to assist in arresting him. The soldiers offered resistance. An immediate _mêlée_ was the consequence. The women and children in the audience screamed in affright. The other soldiers present rushed with drawn pistols to the rescue of their comrade. The one in the gallery sprang upon one of the officers with the ferocity of a wild beast. Cherokee Bob with a pistol in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other, his voice wildly ringing above all other sounds, was in his true element. More than a dozen pistol shots followed in quick succession. Two of the soldiers were killed, and others fearfully mangled. Porter and his deputy assistant were each shot through a leg, the latter crippled for life. The work of blood was progressing, and but for the interference of an officer of the garrison, would have ended only with the death of the assassins.