“No,” said Plummer, “you’ve set yourself up for a game-cock, and to let you know that I hold you in no fear, I’ve come up to give you a chance to display your skill. Get your gun and we’ll try an exchange of shots at ten paces.” This invitation was interlarded with the usual complement of oaths and epithets. Harry felt the abuse of Plummer keenly, but knew too well his skill with fire-arms to consent to the murderous proposition.
“No, thank you, Plummer,” he replied, laughing, “I’m not looking around for any one to shoot this morning, and have no special regard for any one who is. If you are, and you really want to shoot, you’d better turn loose.”
It so happened that at the time of this conversation, Crawford, armed for the purpose, was searching for Plummer, with the intention of shooting him. As is usual on all such occasions, friends interfered to prevent a collision, but Crawford, believing that either he or Plummer must die on their next meeting, gave no heed to their advice. When this was understood by Plummer’s friends, they resorted to various devices to throw Crawford off his guard. At one time they told him that Plummer was about to leave town. This only made him the more watchful. Plummer, meantime, was careful to have one or more friends constantly in his company, so that Crawford could not fire at him without endangering the lives of others. This situation of affairs between the two men continued for several days. The entire community was prepared to hear of the death of one or both at any moment, and each was now encouraged in his purpose by his friends. Plummer was frequently seen near the butcher shop, but never alone. He finally disappeared, and sent a friend to Crawford with the proposition that they should drop all hostile intentions and meet as strangers.
“Tell Plummer,” said Crawford, “that the trick is too shallow. I know him. His word of honor, so repeatedly broken, I regard no more than the wind. He or I must die or leave the camp.”
Soon after this, one of Crawford’s friends discovered that Plummer and his friends had laid a plan to shoot him in his own doorway, under cover of a house directly opposite, and told Crawford of it. While Crawford was on the lookout, a woman living in a cabin in the rear of the Bannack Restaurant called to him to come and get a cup of coffee. While he was drinking it, Frank Ray approached him, and telling him that Plummer was searching for him, placed in his hands Buz Cavan’s double-barrelled rifle. At this moment, Plummer, armed with a similar weapon, came up on the opposite side of the street, and stopping in front of the door, with one foot elevated and resting upon a spoke of a wagon-wheel, placed his rifle across his knee, his right fore-arm lying horizontally along the stock, which he grasped as if prepared to fire at a moment’s notice. Crawford’s friends urged him to improve that opportunity to shoot him. He went out quickly, and resting the rifle across a log projecting from the corner of the cabin, shot Plummer in the right arm, the ball entering at the elbow, and lodging in the wrist.