The assassin turned upon the crowd and compelled them to file out of the saloon before him. After reaching the street he defied arrest, but at five o’clock he gave himself up and asked for an immediate trial. Deadwood was, at that time, so primitive that it had no city officers, and there was no one legally competent to take charge of or try the prisoner. During the same evening, however, a coroner was chosen, who impaneled a jury and returned a verdict to the effect that J. B. Hickok (Wild Bill) came to his death from a wound resulting from a shot fired from a pistol by John McCall, alias Bill Sutherland.
Having proceeded thus far, it was determined to elect a judge, sheriff and prosecuting attorney to try McCall on the following day. Languishe, the lessee of McDaniel’s theatre, offered the use of the theatre for the purposes of the trial, which was arranged to take place at 9 o’clock on the following morning. Three men were sent out in different directions to notify the miners in the neighborhood of the murder, and to request their attendance at the trial.
Promptly at the time appointed, the improvised court convened, and Joseph Brown, who had been chosen sheriff, produced the prisoner. F. J. Kuykendall, the _pro tempore_ judge, then addressed the crowd in a very appropriate manner, reminding those present that the court was purely a self-constituted one, but that in the discharge of his duty he would be governed by justice, and trust to them for a ratification of his acts. His remarks were greeted with hand-clappings of approval. The prisoner was then led forward and conducted to a seat on the stage to the right of the judge.
Never did a more forbidding countenance face a court than that of Jack McCall; his head, which was covered with a thick crop of chestnut hair, was very narrow as to the parts occupied by the intellectual portion of the brain, while the animal development was exceedingly large. A small, sandy moustache covered a sensual mouth, and the coarse double-chin was partially hid by a stiff goatee. The nose was what is commonly called “snub;” he had cross eyes and a florid complexion, which completed a more repulsive picture than Dore could conceive. He was clad in a blue flannel shirt, brown overalls, heavy shoes, and, as he sat in a stooping position, with his arms folded across his breast, he evidently assumed a nonchalance and bravado which were foreign to his feelings, and betrayed by the spasmodic heavings of his heart.