Even the women recalled terrible scenes.

Mrs.Cutter recounted to an interested group how she had seen a claim jumped in Placer County in 1851, when three men were shot, falling in a fusillade of rifle shots, and expiring later upon the floor of her kitchen while she looked on.

Mrs.Dyke had been in a stage hold-up, when the shotgun messenger was murdered.
Stories by the hundreds went the round of the company.

The air was surcharged with blood, dying groans, the reek of powder smoke, the crack of rifles.

All the legends of '49, the violent, wild life of the early days, were recalled to view, defiling before them there in an endless procession under the glare of paper lanterns and kerosene lamps.
But the affair had aroused a combative spirit amongst the men of the assembly.