Now, at this stage of the affair the Doctor was reduced to the alternatives of yielding the point of honor or shooting on sight. He chose the latter. So, with divers and sundry weapons of death--a rifle, a double-barreled shot-gun, a six-shooter, and a pair of derringers, with, perhaps, a bowie-knife, meaning by the medley of arms to observe the nice point of using the same weapon the Judge might have when they met--he took position on Main Street, where his game had to pass in going from his house to his office, and waited there two or three hours, but the Judge did not appear. By this time a large crowd of the Doctor's friends and neutral spectators had gathered round, and the enraged divine--or colonel, as he was then called--stepped upon a dry goods box and harangued the excited crowd, closing up with the historic and threadbare denunciation of the Judge as "a scoundrel, a liar and a coward," and he would shoot him when and wherever he saw him. He then retired to private quarters, to be flattered by a few friends for his brave and chivalrous conduct. Of course the Judge was a scoundrel a liar and a coward, because the Colonel said so, in the God-defying spirit of hate and murder. He could not be a good man, an honest man, or a brave or true man, after this; no, the Colonel had said it before men and angels, and laughing devils, and the universe was bound to credit his _ipse dixit_. The parties, however, were soon reconciled by the good and pacific offices of the Masonic fraternity, of which they proved to be members. The Judge said he did not intend his remarks on scalawags for the Colonel, and did not know the Colonel was a Mason. And the Colonel said he did not know the Judge was a Mason, or he might have acted differently; that the Judge was a gentleman, and he certainly felt bound to make the _amende honorable_. How changed! The furious madman would have killed him but a few hours ago, but suddenly he becomes as "gentle as a sucking dove." O, poor deluded devotee of the dueling code, thou wouldst have imbrued thy hands in the blood of thy fellow, and on thine own mistaken suspicion! Well, God pity thee till thou learnest better, and ceasest thy barbarity of soul!