“Come on, you black-hearted ace thief!” shouted Calamity Jane, thrusting the muzzle of one of her plated revolvers forcibly under the gambler’s prominent nose—­“come on! slide in if you are after squar’ up-an’-down fun.  We’ll greet you, best we know how, an’ not charge you anything, either.  See!  I’ve got a couple full hands o’ sixes—­every one’s a trump!  Ain’t ye got no aces hid up yer sleeves?”

The card sharp still cursed furiously, and backed away.  He dare not reach for a weapon lest the dare-devil girl or young Harris (who now held a cocked pill-box in each hand),-"should salt him on a full lay.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” and the laugh of Calamity rung wildly through the great saloon—­“Ha! ha! ha! here’s a go!  Who wants to buy a cupped-winged sharp?”

“Sold out right cheap!” added Ned, facetiously.  “Clear the track and we’ll take him out and boost him to a limb.”

At this juncture some half a dozen of the gambler’s gang came rushing up, headed by Catamount Cass, who had recovered from the effects of the blow from Harris’ fist.

“At them! at ’em!” roared the “screechin’ cattymount frum up nor’.”  “Rip, dig an’ gouge ’em.  Ho! ho! we’ll see now who’ll swing, we will!  We’ll l’arn who’ll display his agility in mid-air, we will.  At ’em, b’yees, at ’em.  We’ll hang ’em like they do hoss-thieves down at Cheyenne!”

Then followed a pitched battle in the bar-room of the “Metropolitan” saloon, such as probably never occurred there before, and never has since.

Revolvers flashed on every hand, knives clashed in deadly conflict; yells, wild, savage, and awful made a perfect pandemonium, to which was added a second edition in the shape of oaths, curses, and groans.  Crack! whiz! bang! the bullets flew about like hailstones, and men fell to the reeking floor each terrible moment.

The two friends were not alone in the affray.

No sooner had Catamount Cass and his gang of “toughs” showed fight, than a company of miners sprung to Harris’ side, and showed their willingness to fight it out on the square line.

Therefore, once the first shot was fired, it needed not a word to pitch the battle.

Fiercely waged the contest—­now hand to hand—­loud rose the savage yells on the still night air.

One by one men fell on either side, their life-blood crimsoning the floor, their dying groans unheeded in the fearful melee.

Still unharmed, and fighting among the first, we see Ned Harris and his remarkable companion, Calamity Jane; both are black, and scarcely recognizable in the cloud of smoke that fills the bar-room.  Harris is wounded in a dozen places and weak from loss of blood; yet he stands up bravely and fights mechanically.

Calamity Jane if she is wounded shows it not, but faces the music with as little apparent fear as any of those around her.

On wages the battle, even as furiously as in its beginning; the last shot has been fired; it is now knife to knife, and face to face.