City had fought with pistols either impromptu or premeditated duels.  I had been in several, but then mine didn’t count.  Most of them were of the impromptu kind.  Mark hadn’t had any yet, and we thought it about time that his baptism took place.

He was not eager for it; he was averse to violence, but we finally prevailed upon him to send Laird a challenge, and when Laird did not send a reply at once we insisted on Mark sending him another challenge, by which time he had made himself believe that he really wanted to fight, as much as we wanted him to do.  Laird concluded to fight, at last.  I helped Mark get up some of the letters, and a man who would not fight after such letters did not belong in Virginia City—­in those days.

    Laird’s acceptance of Mark’s challenge came along about midnight, I
    think, after the papers had gone to press.  The meeting was to take
    place next morning at sunrise.

Of course I was selected as Mark’s second, and at daybreak I had him up and out for some lessons in pistol practice before meeting Laird.  I didn’t have to wake him.  He had not been asleep.  We had been talking since midnight over the duel that was coming.  I had been telling him of the different duels in which I had taken part, either as principal or second, and how many men I had helped to kill and bury, and how it was a good plan to make a will, even if one had not much to leave.  It always looked well, I told him, and seemed to be a proper thing to do before going into a duel.  So Mark made a will with a sort of gloomy satisfaction, and as soon as it was light enough to see, we went out to a little ravine near the meeting- place, and I set up a board for him to shoot at.  He would step out, raise that big pistol, and when I would count three he would shut his eyes and pull the trigger.  Of course he didn’t hit anything; he did not come anywhere near hitting anything.  Just then we heard somebody shooting over in the next ravine.  Sam said: 

    “What’s that, Steve?”

    “Why,” I said, “that’s Laud.  His seconds are practising him over
    there.”

    It didn’t make my principal any more cheerful to hear that pistol go
    off every few seconds over there.  Just then I saw a little mud-hen
    light on some sage-brush about thirty yards away.

    “Mark,” I said, “let me have that pistol.  I’ll show you how to
    shoot.”

He handed it to me, and I let go at the bird and shot its head off, clean.  About that time Laird and his second came over the ridge to meet us.  I saw them coming and handed Mark back the pistol.  We were looking at the bird when they came up.

    “Who did that?” asked Laird’s second.

    “Sam,” I said.

    “How far off was it?”

    “Oh, about thirty yards.”

    “Can he do it again?”

    “Of course,” I said; “every time.  He could do it twice that far.”