“At about this time something occurred which caused my cup of joy, already full, to overflow on all sides, a circular cataract of bliss.  Three men, strangers in that locality, were arrested for the stage robbery in which I had lost my money and watch.  They were brought to trial and, despite my efforts to clear them and fasten the guilt upon three of the most respectable and worthy citizens of Ghost Rock, convicted on the clearest proof.  The murder would now be as wanton and reasonless as I could wish.

“One morning I shouldered my Winchester rifle, and going over to my uncle’s house, near Nigger Head, asked my Aunt Mary, his wife, if he were at home, adding that I had come to kill him.  My aunt replied with her peculiar smile that so many gentleman called on that errand and were afterward carried away without having performed it that I must excuse her for doubting my good faith in the matter.  She said I did not look as if I would kill anybody, so, as a proof of good faith I leveled my rifle and wounded a Chinaman who happened to be passing the house.  She said she knew whole families that could do a thing of that kind, but Bill Ridley was a horse of another color.  She said, however, that I would find him over on the other side of the creek in the sheep lot; and she added that she hoped the best man would win.

“My Aunt Mary was one of the most fair-minded women that I have ever met.

“I found my uncle down on his knees engaged in skinning a sheep.  Seeing that he had neither gun nor pistol handy I had not the heart to shoot him, so I approached him, greeted him pleasantly and struck him a powerful blow on the head with the butt of my rifle.  I have a very good delivery and Uncle William lay down on his side, then rolled over on his back, spread out his fingers and shivered.  Before he could recover the use of his limbs I seized the knife that he had been using and cut his hamstrings.  You know, doubtless, that when you sever the tendo Achillis the patient has no further use of his leg; it is just the same as if he had no leg.  Well, I parted them both, and when he revived he was at my service.  As soon as he comprehended the situation, he said: 

“’Samuel, you have got the drop on me and can afford to be generous.  I have only one thing to ask of you, and that is that you carry me to the house and finish me in the bosom of my family.’

“I told him I thought that a pretty reasonable request and I would do so if he would let me put him into a wheat sack; he would be easier to carry that way and if we were seen by the neighbors en route it would cause less remark.  He agreed to that, and going to the barn I got a sack.  This, however, did not fit him; it was too short and much wider than he; so I bent his legs, forced his knees up against his breast and got him into it that way, tying the sack above his head.  He was a heavy man and I had all that I could do to get him on my back, but I staggered along for some distance until I came to a swing that some of the children had suspended to the branch of an oak.  Here I laid him down and sat upon him to rest, and the sight of the rope gave me a happy inspiration.  In twenty minutes my uncle, still in the sack, swung free to the sport of the wind.