applauded the rival speakers who from a rude platform addressed the
excited multitude. Partisan spirit at that time ran high in the
foot-hills; crimination and recrimination, challenge, reply,
accusation, and retort had already inflamed the meeting, and
Colonel Bungstarter, after a withering review of his opponent's
policy, culminated with a personal attack upon the career and
private character of the eloquent and chivalrous Colonel Culpepper
Starbottle of Siskiyou. That eloquent and chivalrous gentleman was
known to be present; it was rumored that the attack was expected to
provoke a challenge from Colonel Starbottle which would give
Bungstarter the choice of weapons, and deprive Starbottle of his
advantage as a dead shot. It was whispered also that the sagacious
Starbottle, aware of this fact, would retaliate in kind so
outrageously as to leave Bungstarter no recourse but to demand
satisfaction on the spot. As Colonel Starbottle rose, the eager
crowd drew together, elbowing each other in rapt and ecstatic
expectancy. "He can't get even on Bungstarter, onless he allows
his sister ran off with a nigger, or that he put up his grandmother
at draw poker and lost her," whispered the Quartz Crusher; "kin
he?" All ears were alert, particularly the very long and hairy
ones just rising above the railing of the speaker's platform; for
Jinny, having a feminine distrust of solitude and a fondness for
show, had followed her master to the meeting and had insinuated
herself upon the platform, where way was made for her with that
frontier courtesy always extended to her age and sex.

Colonel Starbottle, stertorous and purple, advanced to the railing.
There he unbuttoned his collar and laid his neckcloth aside, then
with his eye fixed on his antagonist he drew off his blue frock
coat, and thrusting one hand into his ruffled shirt front, and