At least one man in every three had been involved in a gun fight at some time of his life.
"Ah, you ought to have seen in Yuba County one time--" "Why, in Butte County in the early days--" "Pshaw! this to-night wasn't anything! Why, once in a saloon in Arizona when I was there--" and so on, over and over again.

Osterman solemnly asserted that he had seen a greaser sawn in two in a Nevada sawmill.

Old Broderson had witnessed a Vigilante lynching in '55 on California Street in San Francisco.

Dyke recalled how once in his engineering days he had run over a drunk at a street crossing.

Gethings of the San Pablo had taken a shot at a highwayman.