Soon after this we reached another town where we were told there might be trouble.

Here the local committee included an old and valued friend, a "two-gun" man of repute, who was not in the least quarrelsome, but who always kept his word.

We marched round to the local opera-house, which was packed with a mass of men, many of them rather rough-looking.

My friend the two-gun man sat immediately behind me, a gun on each hip, his arms folded, looking at the audience; fixing his gaze with instant intentness on any section of the house from which there came so much as a whisper.

The audience listened to me with rapt attention.